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Forwarded to Order Division 19AR___18L__t01i- 

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Book -A 4 -5T 



THE 



NEW TESTAMENT STORY 



ISetolD for goirag people 



BY 

W. F. ADENEY, M.A. 

if 

NEW COLLEGE, LONDON 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 



Nefo gork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1909 

All rights reserved 



o\ 






fr\>6 



Copyright, 1898, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



i^h* Office. 



NorfajootJ tresis 

J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 






Part II 
THE NEW TESTAMENT STOEY 




REFERENCE 

OtrisCs Journeys . ahotrn fiws 

3btrarc?& of Philip ._ 

letntrchy of Herod, Antipaa 

Ronton, frov . of \hutcea, \s _ 

Ttvet^n, Gblies ofDecapoHs acre 
itTuLeriinecL thus Scythopolis 



p ubliahai byJamss Clarke & C° 



Stanford's GeoS'.Estab. 



203 



I 

The Boyhood of Jesus 
chapter I 

HOME LIFE AT NAZARETH 

High up among the wild hills of the country that 
was once called Galilee is a little town, built in a sort 
of cup or basin that seems to be scooped out of the face 
of the cliff. If you look at it across the great green 
plain below, when the sun is shining at noon on its 
white houses, this little town seems like a patch of 
snow left unmelted on the dull brown hills. If you 
climb the steep, winding path among the rocks — a 
very tiring scramble for a hot day — you will see 
that the houses are planted on any level bit of 
ground that can be found, so that when you go out 
of one house you almost step on the roof of another. 
There are no regular streets — only narrow lanes, 
and in some places flights of stone steps leading from 
house to house. This is Nazareth. At the time of 
Jesus it was a larger and more important place than 
it is to-day. 

Many hundreds of years ago there lived at Naza- 
reth a kind, quiet man named Joseph, and Mary his 

205 



206 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS 

good and gentle wife. They were poor, and they 
had to work hard for their living. Joseph was a 
carpenter; and while he was in his workshop, Mary 
would have to busy herself about the house, keeping 
the place clean and tidy, sewing and mending clothes, 
baking bread. She would not have much cooking 
to do : they would live very simply, for the most 
part on such food as bread and figs, dates and honey 
and curdled milk and, perhaps, a little fish when the 
hawkers brought it through the town, and, as a 
treat, some meat on feast days. Every morning and 
again every evening, Mary would go down to the 
well, a spring breaking out of the rock. She would 
carry her pitcher on her head. At the well she 
would meet other women of the town who were too 
poor to keep servants, going to and fro with their 
pitchers of water. On washing days, she would 
carry her linen to the stream running out from the 
well, and rinse it in the sparkling water that splashed 
among the stones. 

There were several boys and girls in the carpen- 
ter's cottage. Jesus was the eldest. He was Mary's 
firstborn. We know that He was also the Son of 
God. But, when he came into the world as a little 
baby, He must have looked like any other little baby. 
His mother had to feed Him and care for Him. If 
she had not done so, He would have died. But in 
time He grew tall and strong, as boys will grow. 
His mind, too, grew wiser, and He came to know 
more and more as He grew older. Every year He 




"~%^ l'X0^ ^J0?' 

Woman carrying Child on Shoulder 

207 



HOME LIFE AT NAZARETH 209 

lived the neighbours learnt to love Him more kindly, 
and every year He lived God smiled on Him more 
brightly, so that His heart was full of joy, and His 
life was full of sweetness. 

You may be sure that when He was quite a little 
boy He could climb the rocks round His home ; for 
He was always strong and active and healthy, and 
He loved the mountain heights. Then, as He wan- 
dered over the countryside, many a lovely sight 
would fill His soul with wonder and with praise . to 
His Father in heaven, who had made all things so 
beautiful. In spring hosts of flowers came up after 
the rain — the brightest of them, the blood-red anem- 
ones, scattered over the hills like spots of flame. 
Perhaps green and gold lizards — of which there are 
many — would dart out from under the rocks, or 
peep at Him with their bead-like eyes. In ten 
minutes He could reach the hill -top. There He 
would have a grand view of snow mountains, and 
the blue sea with the ships at anchor in the bay, and 
miles of hill and dale between. Crowning a hill 
quite near He would see a fortress, with its stern, 
frowning walls. 

A high road from the port to the far-off city of 
Damascus passed through Nazareth, and the boy 
Jesus would often see troops of merchants with 
their wares on camels' backs ; some of them would 
open their bales in the market-place, and offer their 
goods for sale. 

We are not told how Jesus was taught, but no 



210 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS 

doubt it was with Him as with other cottage lads. 
If so, when He was very young He would learn to 
read and write from lessons given Him by His 
parents at home. His lesson book would be the 
Old Testament, which was the Jews' Bible. When 
He was about five years old, as we may suppose, 
He was sent to school at the synagogue ; that is the 
Jewish place of worship, like our church or chapel. 
This place was used for services on Saturday (the 
Sabbath of the Jews), and for week-day services on 
Monday and Wednesday. At other times it was 
used for meetings, and for school-teaching. The 
school-teaching was very simple. Jesus never went 
to college, as Paul did. His best lessons He got 
from the Bible, from God's book of nature in the 
lovely scenes round His home, and from the Spirit 
of God in His own heart. 

When He was old enough, Jesus went to work 
in the carpenter's shop, and thus He became Him- 
self a carpenter. For fifteen years or more He 
worked with hammer and saw and plane. An old 
writer, who lived in the next century, says He used 
to make ploughs and yokes. Depend upon it, He 
made them well — His ploughs, smooth and true, so 
that the ploughmen would have no excuse to turn 
back grumbling and complaining ; and His yokes 
easy, so as not to gall the shoulders of the poor 
patient oxen. In this way He lived till He was 
thirty years old. To His neighbours He seemed 
to be an ordinary working-man. And yet, though 



HOME LIFE AT NAZARETH 211 

He was doing nothing wonderful, there was this 
great difference between Him and everybody else 
in Nazareth. There was no evil in Him ; He never 
did an ill deed; He never spoke a bad word. If 
you could have seen the secret thoughts of His 
heart, you would have found them as pure as a 
garden of white lilies. 



CHAPTER II 

THE STORY OF GABRIEL 

When a man becomes great and famous, people 
like to find out all they can about his early days. 
So it was with Jesus. He only got known beyond 
the little group of His friends at Nazareth when 
He came out in public, and then He was about 
thirty years old. The earliest account of Jesus 
we have is in St. Mark's Gospel, and that begins 
at this part of His life. But afterwards the Chris- 
tians began to inquire about His early days. Per- 
haps Mary herself then told the wonders she had 
long kept secret in her heart. The story of Gabriel 
is one of these wonders. It begins in the old days 
before Mary was married, when she was a girl at 
home ; and it tells first of another mother and another 
child. This is the story. 

In the south country, far away from Nazareth, 
there was living an old priest named Zacharias. 
He had a wife named Elisabeth, who was Mary's 
cousin. They were good people ; but they felt sad 
because they had no child. It happened one day, 
when Zacharias was taking his turn at the temple 
in Jerusalem, burning sweet spices that filled the 
air with scent, that he saw an angel standing by 
the side of the rising smoke. The sight frightened 

212 



THE STORY OF GABRIEL 218 

him very much. But the angel said, " Do not be 
afraid, Zacharias ; because your prayer is heard, and 
your wife Elisabeth shall have a son, and you shall 
call his name John" (that means "the Favour of 
God"). The angel then went on to say how the 
child was to be brought up. For one thing, he 
was to have no wine to drink. God had a great 
work for him to do ; it was to prepare the people 
for Christ. 

This was all too wonderful for Zacharias to 
believe. 

But the angel said, "I am Gabriel, that stand in 
the presence of God ; and I am sent to speak to 
you, to bring you this good news." 

When the old priest went out of the temple he 
was dumb, and all people wondered what had 
happened. 

Some months later, but still before Mary had 
left her home to go and live with Joseph, the angel 
Gabriel came to her in Nazareth, and said, " Hail ! 
you are highly favoured; the Lord is with you." 
Mary was frightened, and puzzled to think what 
this could mean. Then the angel said, " Do not be 
afraid, Mary, for God is pleased with you," and he 
went on to tell her that she should have a son. 

"You must call His name Jesus" — which means 
" Saviour " — said the angel. " He shall be great, 
and shall be called the Son of the Most High ; and 
He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, 
and of His kingdom there shall be no end." 



214 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS 

Then the angel told her about Elisabeth. So 
Mary set out to pay her cousin a visit. When 
they met and talked together about these angel 
visits, they were both so full of joy that they burst 
out singing to the praise of God. 

Now the angel's words came true. First a baby 
was born in the house of the old priest. When 
they were going to give him a name, the friends 
said he must be named Zacharias after his father. 
But his mother said, M No ; he shall be called John." 
Then they made signs to his father to find out what 
he wanted the child to be called. The priest wrote 
down, " His name is John " ; and everybody won- 
dered. The next moment Zacharias, who had not 
spoken a word since he had seen the angel standing 
by the smoking altar, opened his mouth and began 
to praise God. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM 

The country in which Jesus lived was part of the 
great Roman Empire. At the time of the birth of 
Jesus the head of the empire was Augustus. He 
was the first of the emperors, and he ruled very well. 
From time to time he used to give orders for his 
people to be counted. We should call this counting 
a "census"; but then it was called an " enrolment," 
because the names of the families were set down in 
lists or rolls. 

The story of the shepherds of Bethlehem tells us 
that, for the sake of one of these enrolments, Joseph 
and Mary had to travel right away from Nazareth in 
the north, through Jerusalem to the little town of 
Bethlehem on the other side, a journey of several 
days; because the families of both of them belonged 
to that city. The Romans did not care where the 
families came from. But the Jews were very partic- 
ular about this matter; and the census was to be 
taken in a Jewish way. 

When they reached Bethlehem they first went to 
the inn. This would not have been at all like one 
of our comfortable modern inns, where travellers 
can get both lodging and food. The inn at an 
Eastern town is only a sort of shelter. There is a 

215 



216 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS 

yard in the middle, where merchants stack their 
goods, and where people cook their food. All round 
are bare rooms where the travellers stay. They 
have to bring their own food. When Joseph and 
Mary came to Bethlehem they found that all these 
rooms had been taken by other people. So they 
went to the stable where the oxen and asses were 
put up. It would be quieter than the noisy yard of 
the inn. Here Jesus was born. His mother laid 
Him in a manger, a place made for the cattle to feed 
out of. This was His cradle. 

It is said that people kept the sheep for the sacri- 
fices of the temple at Jerusalem in the fields near 
Bethlehem, and that there shepherds had to watch 
the flocks all the year round; so that this night 
when Jesus was born there would be shepherds out 
near Bethlehem, even if it was winter time, though 
at other places the sheep would be shut up in their 
folds. We can fancy we see these shepherds, each 
sitting on a rock, his head wrapped in a sort of 
mantle, a sheepskin on his back, a fire of brushwood 
blazing in the midst to keep off wild beasts. This 
is the country where David killed the lion and the 
bear in the olden times; in the days of Jesus there 
were wolves prowling about over the wild hills 
round Bethlehem, always ready to pounce on the 
sheep at night. 

As the shepherds watched their flocks, guarding 
them through the long, quiet hours of that night 
in which Jesus was born, they had a great fright. 



THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM 217 

An angel stood by them, and a great light shone 
round about them. 

The angel said to them, " Do not be afraid ; for 
see, I bring you news, news full of great delight. 
To-day, in the city of David, a Saviour is born for 
you — Christ the Lord." 

Then the angel went on to tell the shepherds how 
they were to find the Saviour. They were to look 
for a baby wrapped up and lying in a manger. 

Suddenly the angel was joined by a great host 

of his companions. They were singing, and this 

was their song: 

" Glory to God in the highest places, 
And on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased." 

When the angels were gone away, and all was 
still again, and the shepherds only saw the quiet 
stars overhead shining down on them from God's 
heaven, they said to one another, "Let us go now 
to Bethlehem, and see this thing that has happened, 
which the Lord has made known to us." 

They started out in haste, for they were very 
eager to find the Saviour, whom they had been 
taught to expect God would send them about this 
time. They came to the inn stable, and there they 
saw the babe in the manger as the angel had said. 
Then they told of what they had seen and heard 
in the fields, and the people of Bethlehem were 
astonished; but Mary kept all these things in her 
mind, pondering them ; and the shepherds went 
back full of gladness, praising God. 



CHAPTER I\ 

THE TWO DOVES 

It was a law among the Jews that when a child 
was born the mother should make a sacrifice to God. 
If she could afford it, she was to offer a lamb ; but 
if she was too poor for that, she might bring two 
doves. Mary brought the gift of a poor woman; 
she came up to the temple with two doves. It was 
also the law that some money should be paid at the 
temple when a first boy-child was born, as a sign 
that he belonged to God. Mary brought this 
money, together with the doves. 

Now, in the temple were some old people who 
spent all their time there, giving themselves up to 
the praise and worship of God. It had been re- 
vealed to one of them, named Simeon — a good old 
man, whose heart was full of the Spirit of God — 
that he should not die till he had seen the Lord's 
Christ. When the child Jesus was brought into 
the temple by His parents, Simeon took Him in 
his arms, saying, 

" Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart, O Lord, 
According to Thy word, in peace ; 
For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." 

He was ready to die now that he had seen Jesus, 
the promised Christ of God. 

218 



THE TWO DOVES 219 

While Joseph and Mary were wondering at this, 
Simeon blessed them ; but he also warned Mary that 
trouble would come to her when many people turned 
against her Son. It would be like a sword piercing 
her soul. 

Another of these old people in the temple was a 
prophetess named Anna. She had been married for 
seven years when her husband died ; and after that 
she had lived as a widow for as many as eighty-four 
years, so she must have been a very old woman 
indeed. She was accustomed to live in the temple, 
worshipping God with prayers and fastings night 
and day. 

Anna, the old prophetess, came up just when 
Simeon was holding the child in his arms, and 
she, too, gave thanks to God. Then she went to 
other people, who, as she knew, were waiting and 
watching for the coming of the deliverance of God, 
and told them of the child she had seen in the 
temple. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MAGI 

From very ancient times there had been living 
in the East, especially in the neighbourhood of 
Babylon and Persia, men who studied the stars, 
and so laid the foundations of the science of astron- 
omy. But they had mixed this true knowledge 
with strange fancies about the influence of the 
heavenly bodies on the lives of men and women. 
In this way came astrology as one of the magic 
arts. It was held that the position of the stars 
at the birth of a child determined what his fortune 
was to be. The learned men of Persia who studied 
such subjects were called " Magi." In the more 
ancient times these Magi were honoured as forming 
a peculiar order almost like the priests among the 
Jews. But by the time of Christ this was no longer 
the case. Still there were men who gathered up the 
wisdom of their fathers, and who also watched the 
heavens for themselves. 

The story of the Magi tells how some of these 
people came from far to see the infant Jesus. It 
has been imagined that there were three of them, 
that their home was Arabia, that they were kings. 
They have even been named and described as Mel- 
chior, an old man with long white hair and a sweep- 

220 



THE MAGI 221 

ing beard ; Caspar, a beardless youth with a ruddy 
face ; and Balthasar, with the black skin of an 
African. All this is imaginary. The story as we 
have it in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 
the only place where it is found in the New Tes- 
tament, simply tells how some Magi, we do not 
know how many, came from " the East," we do not 
know exactly where. 

These men had heard that a great king of the 
Jews was to appear about this time. A Latin 
writer tells us that there was spread all through 
the East an expectation that some great one would 
arise. When they saw a star, which they took to 
be a sign of the birth of the king, the Magi fol- 
lowed the direction of this star till they came to 
Jerusalem. There they sought out Herod, the 
reigning king, and asked him where they were 
to find the child who was born to be king of the 
Jews. Herod turned for advice to the learned 
Jews about him, and these men found an old proph- 
ecy, from which they learnt that the Christ was to 
be born in Bethlehem. 

So the Magi set out for Bethlehem, and, as they 
went on their way, they were delighted to see 
their star again, and they followed it till it stood 
over the house where the young child was. When 
they had found the child, they gave Him presents 
of gold and precious spices. 

Herod was a cruel tyrant. He had a rival of 
his beheaded, and two young men of whom he 



222 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS 

was jealous strangled; he had his brother-in-law 
drowned in a bath at Jericho, and even one of 
his wives killed. The older he lived the more 
gloomy and suspicious, the more cruel and terrible 
he became. Now he had asked the Magi to come 
and tell him where they found the young child, 
that he might go and offer Him homage. But 
since they were warned in a dream to do no such 
thing, they went home quietly without returning 
to the king. 

This greatly enraged Herod, and he ordered all 
the baby boys under two years old in and about 
Bethlehem to be killed. Joseph was warned of 
the danger in a dream, and he fled with the young 
child and His mother into Egypt, where they stayed 
till Herod was dead, when they would have gone 
back to Bethlehem ; but on hearing that Herod's 
son, who took after his father, was now ruling, 
they went to Nazareth. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BOY IN THE TEMPLE 

Every year Jesus' parents used to go up to 
Jerusalem to a great feast of the Jews called " The 
Passover." When Jesus was twelve years old they 
took Him with them for the first time. They trav- 
elled with their friends in a great company. In 
this way the members of a family might very easily 
get separated from one another. 

When it was time to start back on the journey 
to Nazareth, the boy Jesus was missing. But as 
His parents thought He was somewhere in the 
crowd, they set out without Him. 

So they travelled for the first day's journey ; 
and at night they looked for Him among their 
friends and relations, quite expecting to see Him. 
He was not there. Naturally they were alarmed, 
and they turned back to Jerusalem to look for 
Him. 

This took another day, and then they had a 
weary search through the narrow streets and 
crowded bazaars of the great city. In all that 
moving sea of strange faces they looked in vain for 
the one face they hungered after. And so again a 
day passed. This was the third day since His 
parents had last seen Jesus. How tired and dis- 

223 



224 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS 

tressed they must have been ! No doubt they 
blamed themselves now for having started without 
their child. 

At length they went into the temple. Now it 
was the custom for learned Jews, called Rabbis, 
to teach their pupils in the courts and porticos 
round about the temple. Sometimes they had open 
classes, which anybody might attend without be- 
coming a regular pupil. The Rabbi would sit on 
a carpet spread on the ground, cross-legged, as 
perhaps you have seen a tailor sit at his work, and 
his scholars would sit on the same carpet in a circle 
about him. The Rabbis would put questions to 
their classes, and they liked their scholars to put 
questions to them. 

To their astonishment Joseph and Mary found 
their lost child in one of these classes of the rabbis 
at the temple. Never was there so eager a scholar. 
Everybody, teacher and taught, was astonished at 
Him — He put such searching questions ; He gave 
such startling answers ! 

But His mother was vexed at what she saw ; 
partly, perhaps, because He seemed so happy in 
the busy studies of the class, while she and Joseph 
were hot and tired and flustered from their vain 
hunt up and down the streets. 

So she cried, "Child, why have you treated us 
in this way? See, your father and I have been 
looking for you with sorrowing hearts." 

But Jesus answered, "How is it that you were 



THE BOY IN THE TEMPLE 225 

seeking for Me ? Didn't you know that I must be 
in my Father's house ? " 

This, then, was the explanation. Jesus had not 
been thoughtless or unkind. He had taken it for 
granted that His parents would have guessed 
where He was. What was more natural to Jesus, 
who always lived in the joy of His Father's 
presence, than that He should be in His Father's 
house? But even Mary did not really understand 
her wonderful Son. 

Still, though He was the Son of God, and 
though His Father's house was His true home, 
Jesus went quietly back to Nazareth with His 
earthly parents, and lived in obedience to them. 



II 

Jesus the Prophet 



chapter I 

THE BAPTISM 

When John, the son of Zacharias the priest 
and Elisabeth his wife, grew up to be a man, 
he took to strange ways of living. He went away 
into the wild country, among the rocks and the 
caves where bears and jackals had their dens. 
He did not dress like other Jews, in a long white 
tunic and rich-coloured cloak. He wore a very 
rough mantle woven from camel's hair, like a piece 
of sackcloth, the sort of stuff the Arabs use for 
covering their tents. And for food he just had 
whatever he could find in the wild country — honey 
from the bees that built their combs in cracks of 
the rocks or hollow trees, and even insects — 
locusts, like our grasshoppers. 

People used to go out from all parts to see this 
strange man. Then he would preach to them, 
and what he said was very startling. He told them 
that the Kingdom of God, which some of them had 
heard of, and some of them had read about, as 

226 



THE BAPTISM 



227 



coming in the wonderful future, was close at hand. 
And he said Someone was coming after him, so 
great a person that John was not worthy to un- 
buckle His sandal. Then he went on to say that 
they must be prepared for all this by leaving 
their bad ways and turning their minds to 
better things. He would get very fierce in his 




Arab Sandals 



preaching, calling his hearers "an offspring of 
vipers." He said that the axe was already lying 
at the root of the tree, and that every tree that was 
not bringing forth good fruit would be cut down 
and thrown into the fire. 

This very much frightened the people. So they 
cried out, " What must we do ? " 



228 JESUS THE PROPHET 

John answered, " He that has two coats, let him 
give to him that has none ; and he that has food, let 
him also share it." 

Taxgatherers, who used to be hard on the people, 
cheating and robbing them, came, asking, " Master, 
what shall we do ? " 

John answered, "Don't force people to pay more 
than is due from them." 

Soldiers came, saying, " And we, what must we do ? " 

"Do not be rough and violent," said John ; " do 
not accuse people falsely ; be content with your 
wages." 

John took those people who wished to be pre- 
pared for the coming of the Kingdom of God down 
to the River Jordan, and there he baptized them, as 
a sign that they wished their sins to be washed away. 
To baptize means to wash in a religious service and 
as a sign. Because John did this he was called 
"The Baptist," that is, "The Washer." 

Among the many people who came to John to be 
baptized by him was Jesus. Now, John did not know 
that Jesus was the Son of God and the Saviour of 
the world, the very Person whose coming he had 
preached about. But he knew something of Him. 
We read in the stories of their childhood how they 
were distant relations, cousins of some degree, and 
how their two mothers knew one another and had 
met. At all events, John knew enough about 
Jesus to feel that He did not need the washing 
of repentance. 



THE BAPTISM 229 

But Jesus made John baptize Him, to show that 
He, too, wished to belong to the Kingdom. 

Then they both went into the water, and John 
baptized Jesus. As He was coming up from the 
water Jesus saw a vision — it looked like the sky 
being torn open, and the Spirit of God coming 
through and descending on Him like a dove, while 
a voice came out of the sky, saying, " Thou art My 
beloved Son ; in Thee I have been well pleased." 



CHAPTER II 

THE TEMPTATION 

If you were to go to the valley of the Jordan, 
near to where the city of Jericho stood in the olden 
times, and then look up one night to the mountains 
behind which the sun had set, you would see lights 
twinkling here and there in what had seemed in the 
daytime a wild and desolate region. They are the 
lights of the hermits, who live in caves among these 
mountains, because it has been supposed that this is 
the very place where Jesus went directly after His 
baptism. 

The Spirit of God, that came upon Him as He 
went up with John the Baptist from the Jordan, 
drove Him into the wild country. There He was 
for forty days without food. This country is the 
haunt of wild beasts, and Jesus lived among them. 
They found that He had not come, as other men 
came, to hunt and kill them. He was so gentle ; 
they could not long be afraid of Him. But it was 
a hard and terrible time for Jesus, and dark thoughts 
came into His mind. 

In His baptism Jesus had publicly given Himself 
to the service of God. We may suppose He would 
want to think out the course of His great life-work. 
After we have given ourselves to God, it is right 

230 



THE TEMPTATION 231 

and necessary that we should have a quiet medita- 
tion by ourselves to consider the best way of living 
to His glory. 

But it was the Spirit of God in Jesus that drove 
Him into the desert. He had new gifts and new 
powers. How should He use them ? That is a 
question that comes with all new gifts and powers. 

Now, new powers mean new temptations, because 
they may all be used in wrong ways. Jesus knew 
He was to be the Messiah, the Christ, the promised 
King and Saviour. How should He win His throne ? 
How should He reign over His kingdom ? There 
were worldly and wicked ways of reaching the ends 
before Him, such as kings and conquerors usually 
took. They seemed the easiest ways, and Jesus was 
tempted to follow them. 

Then the presence of the Spirit of God in Him 
was to help Him to do most wonderful things. It 
seemed as though He might make some of these 
serve Him very easily. 

So the spirit of evil that we call Satan, the spirit 
that comes to us all, and whispers wicked thoughts 
and desires in our hearts, came to Jesus in the lonely 
desert, where He had no friends, and brought plans 
of evil to His mind. 

After His long fasting, Jesus had a great craving 
for food. Hungry men are tantalized in their imagi- 
nation with fancy pictures of feasts. The stones on 
the mountain-side looked to the hungry Jesus like 
loaves of bread. 



232 JESUS THE PROPHET 

Then the wicked spirit said, " If you are the 
Son of God, command these stones to become 
loaves." 

If Jesus had done so, He would have worked a 
wonder for His own comfort. He felt that to do 
so would be to spoil His life and work. 

So He answered by quoting Scripture, " Man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God." 

Then the evil spirit made Him fancy Himself on 
a high tower of the temple at Jerusalem, and the 
voice of vanity urged Him to fling Himself down, 
trusting that God would take care of Him. The 
first temptation was to do the best He could for 
Himself; this second temptation was just of the 
opposite kind — to trust God in a foolish and 
wrong way. It was backed up with a text of 
Scripture ; for even the Bible may be used to teach 
error and tempt to sin, if texts are taken out of 
their right sense and connection. 

Jesus saw through the deception, and answered, 
"Again it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the 
Lord thy God." 

Once more the wicked spirit tempted Him. 
Jesus seemed to be on a high mountain from 
which he could see all the kingdoms of the world, 
and all their wealth and splendour. 

The tempter said, "All these will I give you, 
if you will fall down and worship me." 

This temptation was for Jesus to get power and 



THE TEMPTATION 233 

riches in wicked ways. To do so is to worship 
the devil. 

Jesus knew it, and He answered angrily, " Away 
with you, Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt 
worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt 
thou serve." 

Then the bad, tempting spirit left Jesus, and 
good spirits from God came to Him, filling His 
mind with holy and peaceful thoughts, and com- 
forting Him. 



CHAPTER III 

JESUS IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 

Soon after this, John the Baptist was seized and 
shut up in the dungeon of a gloomy castle far 
away by the Dead Sea, because he had spoken 
strong words against the wickedness of King Herod 
and his queen. Then Jesus began to preach, taking 
up John's work just where it had been stopped. 
It almost looked as though He were to be John's 
successor, like Elisha following Elijah, for He be- 
gan by repeating John's message. But He went 
up north out of the reach of the king, and before 
long He began a new teaching of His own. There 
was so much freshness and power in His speech 
that crowds gathered about Him, charmed with 
the wonderful words that fell from His lips. They 
said, " What is this ? A new teaching ! and full 
of power ! " 

So Jesus went about among the towns and 
villages of the north country of the Jews, called 
Galilee, preaching the good news of the coming 
Kingdom of God; and, besides this, doing what 
John had never attempted, healing the sick with 
a touch or even a word, so that wherever He went 
people were bringing out the sufferers on their 
beds for Him to cure them. 

In His travels Jesus came to His own town of 
234 



JESUS IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 235 

Nazareth. One Saturday — the Sabbath of the 
Jews — He went into the synagogue according to 
His custom in the old quiet days. There was no 
regular minister to take the service. It was usual 
for the person in charge, one of the principal Jews 
— the " rulers " they called them — to ask anybody 
whom he thought suitable to take part in the ser- 
vice. So when they had read the first lesson, 
which was from the Pentateuch — that is, a volume 
made up of the Old Testament books from Genesis 
to Deuteronomy — Jesus stood up as a sign that 
He would like to read the second lesson. No 
doubt the ruler had been told about His great 
work in the villages, and so had the people, and 
they were naturally curious to hear the voice of 
their townsman who had become so unexpectedly 
famous. For the second lesson the roll of the 
prophets was handed to Him. Jesus unrolled it 
till He came to the part of Isaiah where it is writ- 
ten about the Spirit of God coming on Someone 
to help Him to declare a most beautiful message. 
This prophecy told how the Spirit had come be- 
cause the mysterious person referred to had been 
" anointed " — that is, chosen by God — and set 
apart, to "preach good news to the poor." And 
what was the good news ? It was news of liberty 
to captives, sight for the blind, the coming of 
God's year of grace. 

Jesus closed the book, gave it back to the servant 
in charge, and sat down to preach. Then all the 



236 JESUS THE PROPHET 

people in the synagogue fixed their eyes on Him as 
He began to say, " To-day you have heard this 
scripture fulfilled." 

What did He mean? He was explaining how it 
was that He, a quiet working-man for so many 
years, Whom they all knew so well, had received the 
Spirit of God, because He had been anointed, or 
chosen, by God to bring about the realizing of this 
old, venerable promise. He knew that this was 
why the Spirit had come on Him after His baptism ; 
and He wanted His own townsfolk to have a share 
in the good time coming. 

But they were dreadfully jealous. They could 
not believe it. They thought He was making too 
much of Himself. " Is not this the carpenter ? " 
they said. When Jesus saw them growing restless 
and angry, He changed the style of His address 
altogether, and reminded them how both Elijah and 
Elisha had turned from the unbelieving Jews and 
brought God's blessing to heathen people — the 
widow of Sidon, Naaman the Syrian. This enraged 
the people of Nazareth, and they rose up in a fury 
and dragged Him out of the synagogue to throw 
Him over the cliff on which their city stood. 

Now a strange thing happened. There must have 
been something most wonderful in the quiet dignity 
of Christ, in the real majesty of His Spirit. It must 
have been this that overawed His townsfolk at the 
last moment, for they let Him pass away out of their 
midst unharmed. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FISHERMEN 

As the people of His own town had turned against 
Him, and even meant to kill Him, Jesus left that 
place and went to live at another place, Capernaum, 
a town on the shore of the inland lake known as the 
Sea of Galilee. This was a great change. Nazareth 
is a highland town up among the mountains; the 
Sea of Galilee is in a deep valley six hundred feet 
lower than the level of the Mediterranean Sea. At 
the time of Jesus there were villages and towns all 
round it, and swarms of boats were busy sailing to 
and fro over the lake. Capernaum was close down 
by the shore. Looked at across the blue waters, 
with its white houses gleaming among gardens and 
orchards, and the rocky hills rising behind, it must 
have been a lovely spot. And yet it must have been 
a very unhealthy place, hot and steamy. It was not 
for its pretty scenery that Jesus went to live by the 
lake, though He loved the beauty of nature. No 
doubt His reason was that here He could meet with 
the sort of people He could best make disciples of. 

Once when the crowds came round Him in such 
numbers that there was quite a crush* He saw two 
empty boats drawn up by the lake. The fishermen 
had gone out of them, and were washing their nets. 

237 



238 JESUS THE PROPHET 

He got into one of the boats which belonged to a 
man named Simon, and asked him to push out a 
little into the water. Simon did so, and then Jesus 
preached to the people from the boat. Afterwards 
He said to Simon, " Put out into deep water, and let 
down your nets for fishing." 

Simon answered, " Master, we toiled all night and 
took nothing ; but at your word I will let down the 
nets." 

When they had done so they caught a host of 
fishes, so that their nets were breaking. And they 
beckoned to their partners in the other boats to 
come and help them. There were so many fishes 
they filled both boats, so that they were almost 
swamped. 

Simon was amazed at the sight, and so were those 
who were with him, and he fell down on his knees 
before Jesus, saying, "Leave me; for I am a sinful 
man, Lord." 

And Jesus said to Simon, " Do not be afraid ; 
after this you shall catch men." 

So Jesus called Simon, to whom he gave the name 
Peter, which means " Rock," and also his brother 
Andrew, to follow Him ; and then He called their 
partners, who were two brothers named James and 
John. They all four left their boats and their 
homes, and followed Jesus wherever He went. 
These fishermen were His first constant followers. 
We might say they were the beginning of the 
Church of Christ. 




239 



CHAPTER V 

HIS WONDERFUL WORKS OF HEALING 

Wherever He went Jesus found sick people to 
heal ; and often great numbers of them, suffering 
from all kinds of complaints, were brought to Him, 
and He perfectly cured them all. 

When He had called Simon and Andrew to follow 
Him, Simon took Him to his house. There they 
found Simon's wife's mother ill with fever. The 
people of the house told Him about her at once. 
Jesus came to her, and took her by the hand and 
raised her up ; and the fever left her, and she 
waited on them. That evening a host of sick peo- 
ple were brought to Simon's door, and Jesus healed 
them all. The next day He got up very early, be- 
fore it was light, and went into a desert place to 
pray. When His friends found Him He said, " Let 
us go into the next towns that I may preach there 
too." 

So they started on their travels. On the way 
they met a miserable creature, covered over with 
sores and white scabs. He was what they call a 
"leper." People shrank from lepers, and would 
not go near them, they looked such horrible objects. 
When this poor leper saw Jesus, he ran to Him and 
b 241 



242 JESUS THE PROPHET 

kneeled down before Him saying, " If you will you 
can make me clean." 

Jesus was moved with a deep pity, and stretched 
out His hand and touched him, saying, " I will ; be 
made clean." Immediately the disease left him, and 
he was made clean. But now, because Jesus had 
touched a leper, men would say that He was un- 
clean. So He had to keep out in desert places for 
a time. But the people came to Him from all parts. 

When He came back to Capernaum, and it had 
got abroad that He was in a house, a great crowd 
gathered together so that there was no more room, 
not even about the door, and He preached to them. 
Presently four men came up, carrying on a mattress 
a man who was paralyzed, and had lost the power of 
his limbs. When they found they could not get in 
because of the crowd, they went up an outside stair- 
case to the top of the house, took off part of the 
roof, and let the man down into the midst of the 
people where Jesus was preaching. 

Jesus, seeing the faith they had to take so much 
trouble in bringing the paralyzed man to Him, said 
to the poor sufferer, " Child, your sins are forgiven 
you." This very much shocked some teachers of 
religion called " Scribes," who were standing by. 

« Why does this man speak so? " they said. " He 
is blaspheming ; who can forgive sins but One — 
God?" 

Though they only said this quietly among them- 
selves, Jesus understood what they were saying. 




Outside Stairs 
243 



HIS WONDEBFUL WORKS OF HEALING 245 

So He turned to them and said, " Why do you 
reason these things in your hearts ? Which is 
easier, to say to the paralyzed man, Your sins are 
forgiven, or to say, Arise, and take up your bed 
and walk? But to show that the Son of man has 
power on earth to forgive sins " — then He turned 
to the paralyzed man, and spoke directly to him — 
"I say to you, Arise, take up your bed, and go 
home." 

And he arose, and took up his mattress at once, 
and went out in the sight of all the people, so that 
they were amazed, and praised God, saying, " We 
never saw things happening in this way before." 



CHAPTER VI 

HOW JESUS GAVE OFFENCE 

After Jesus had called the four fishermen to 
follow Him He went on to gather other followers. 
Thus, once He was in the very busiest part of the 
town, where merchants and pedlars paid the taxes 
on their wares as they passed through. Jesus saw 
one of the tax-collectors, named Matthew, sitting at 
his work, and said to him, "Follow Me." 

Then Matthew gave up his office, and made a 
great feast for his friends, and invited Jesus there. 
Now the Jews disliked the tax-gatherers, because 
they collected money for the foreign Roman govern- 
ment that had conquered their land some years 
before, and because they were thought to cheat 
for their own advantage. Still, Jesus went to the 
feast. The people who were most strict in their 
religious ways were called Pharisees. The word 
means " separated people " ; they kept apart from 
other people, making themselves out to be better. 

Some of these Pharisees, and some of the teachers 
of religion, the Scribes, were very much shocked at 
Jesus going to eat with tax-gatherers. 

When Jesus heard of this He said, "They that 
are healthy do not need a physician, but they that 

246 



HOW JESUS GAVE OFFENCE 247 

are sick; I came not to call good people, but 
sinners." 

Jesus often shocked these strict people who 
thought themselves so good. It was not that He 
was easy and careless ; He hated sin, and loved 
real goodness far more than they did. But they 
were fussy about little things, though they did not 
practise real goodness ; and they were harsh and 
unjust in judging other people, while Jesus was 
reasonable and kind. Jesus saw that His teaching 
would never agree with the teaching of the religious 
people of His day. He said that nobody would 
patch an old garment with an unshrunk piece of 
cloth, for if it were done the shrinking of the new 
would tear the old, and nobody would put new 
wine into old wine-skins, or the wine-skins would 
burst, and the wine be spilt. He meant that His 
teaching was so new and so different from what 
went before that both would be spoilt if they were 
joined together so that what He taught was forced 
into old forms and customs. 

Then Jesus gave offence because He and His 
disciples did not observe the endless rules about 
washing, not for cleanliness, but just for a religious 
form; and because they did not fast as a duty. 
But the greatest offence was in the matter of the 
Sabbath. Keeping the Sabbath was the principal 
thing in religion with these strict Jews, and they 
took it to mean doing nothing on that day that 
might be called work. Once, when Jesus and His 



248 JESUS THE PKOPHET 

disciples were going through the cornfields, they 
began to make a way for themselves by gathering 
the ears of corn and eating it. This was often done, 
and nobody objected to it in itself. But the strict 
people were shocked at its being done on the 
Sabbath. Then Jesus said, " The Sabbath is made 
for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the 
Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath." 

Another Sabbath, when Jesus saw a man with a 
withered arm in the synagogue, He said to him, 
" Stretch out your arm." 

The man did so, and it was quite healed. This 
offended the strict people more than ever, so that 
they began to plot against Jesus to put Him to 
death. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 

When Jesus had quite a number of people who 
liked to learn of Him, He selected twelve of them 
to be always with Him, and to be specially trained 
to carry on His work. They came to be called 
"Apostles." The name means the same as our 
word "missionaries" — people sent out. Jesus took 
His twelve Apostles away from the multitude of 
people who were always crowding about Him round 
the lake into a quiet place up among the mountains, 
and there He gave them some special teaching. 
He began by saying who were the really happy 
people — 

" Happy are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of 

heaven. 
Happy are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted. 
Happy are they that hunger and thirst after goodness : for 

they shall be filled. 
Happy are the merciful : for they shall receive mercy. 
Happy are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. 
Happy are the peacemakers : for they shall be called sons of 

God. 
Happy are they that have been ill-treated because of their 

goodness : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 

Then He said His followers must go beyond the 
teaching of the Old Testament. That had, " Thou 

249 



250 



JESUS THE PROPHET 



shalt not kill." Jesus taught that to hate our 
brother is to murder him in our thoughts. And 
He added that if we have quarrelled with our 
brother we must be reconciled with him before we 
come to the worship of God. It used to be said, 
"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" — 







A. Pharisee praying at the Corner 

the old law of revenge. This Jesus put an end to, 
teaching His people not to bear a grudge, but to 
love their enemies. 

Then He taught them not to make a show of their 
religion — when they gave to the poor, not to sound 
a trumpet before them ; when they prayed, not to 
stand at the street-corner to be seen by men, as some 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 251 

were proud to do. " But thou, when thou prayest," 
He said, " enter into thy inner chamber, and having 
shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, 
and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recom- 
pense thee." Jesus gave them this model prayer : 

" Our Father which art in heaven, 
Hallowed be Thy name. 
Thy kingdom come. 

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass 

against us. 
And lead us not into temptation, 
But deliver us from evil." 

He told them not to lay up for themselves treas- 
ures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and 
where thieves break through and steal, but to lay up 
treasures in heaven. He said, " No man can serve 
two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon" 
(that is, riches). And He told them not to be 
anxious for the morrow — " See the birds in the 
sky ; they do not sow or reap or gather into barns ; 
and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you 
not of much more value than they? Consider the 
lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, 
neither do they spin ; yet I say to you that Solomon 
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
But if God so clothe the grass of the field, which 
to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall 
He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" 



252 JESUS THE PROPHET 

Then He taught them not to judge others, and 
not to look out for their faults. " Why," He said, 
" do you look at the speck of dust in your brother's 
eye, and do not notice the beam that is in your own 
eye?" 

He went on to encourage them to pray, saying, 
" Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and you 
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. 
What man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask 
him for a loaf, will give him a stone ; or if he shall 
ask for a fish, will give him a serpent ? If you then, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your 
children, how much more shall your Father that is 
in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ? " 

Jesus gave His friends the golden rule — " As 
you would that men should do to you, do you also to 
them." Many other great and wise teachings He 
gave them, and then He finished with these words 
about two houses : 

" Everybody who hears my words and does them, 
I will show you what he is like. He is like a man 
building a house, who digged and went deep, and 
laid a foundation on the rock ; and when there was 
a flood, the stream broke against that house, and 
could not shake it, because it had been well built. 
But he who hears and does not, is like a man that 
built a house upon the earth without a foundation ; 
against which the stream broke, and immediately it 
fell in ; and the ruin of that house was great." 

These are some of the things that Jesus said to 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 253 

His twelve Apostles, when He had them by them- 
selves among the mountains in a lonely place. But 
they have been treasured up for all time, and they 
are the best of all the teachings we can listen to 
to-day. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE WILD MAN AMONG THE TOMBS 

When Jesus had been teaching and healing the 
great crowds that came to Him, He was very tired. 
So His friends took Him in a boat across the lake. 
Suddenly a storm came on, and even the fishermen 
were frightened. But Jesus was asleep on a cushion 
in the stern. They woke Him, saying, " Teacher, do 
you not care if we perish ? " 

Then He rose and said to the waves, " Peace, be 
still." 

And the wind dropped, and there was a great 
calm. 

And He said to them, " Why are you frightened ; 
have you not yet faith ? " 

Jesus had such faith in the care of His Father, He 
could sleep right through a storm. 

On the other side they saw a wild man who lived 
in the cave-tombs. He was mad ; he thought there 
was a whole regiment of demons in him. He was so 
strong that, though he had been chained, he had 
broken his fetters, and he had torn off his clothes. 
There he was among the tombs, night and day cut- 
ting himself with stones and yelling aloud. When 
he saw Jesus, he ran and fell down before Him. 
Jesus commanded the evil spirit to come out of Him. 

254 




255 



THE WILD MAN AMONG THE TOMBS 257 

Part of the story is very strange and difficult to 
understand. It tells how the demons asked to be 
allowed to go into a herd of swine, and how Jesus 
permitted them, and then how the herd rushed down 
a steep place and were drowned in the lake. But 
the best of it is that Jesus cured the miserable man, 
and left him clothed and in his right mind. 



CHAPTER IX 

STORIES OF A LITTLE GIRL AND A WIDOW'S SON 

When Jesus got back to Capernaum, He found a 
man named Jairus, one of the principal people at the 
synagogue, waiting for Him. 

As soon as he saw Jesus, Jairus fell at His feet 
and begged Him very earnestly, saying, " My little 
daughter is at the point of death. I pray you come 
and lay your hands on her, that she may be healed 
and live." 

Jesus started off at once. There was a great 
crowd about Him, and in the crowd a woman who 
was ill crept up behind Him, and just touched the 
fringe of His cloak. "For," she said to herself, 
" if I only touch the fringe of His cloak, I shall be 
made well." And directly she touched it she felt 
herself cured. 

But Jesus, finding in Himself that healing power 
had gone out of Him, turned and said, " Who 
touched my clothes ? " 

When He looked round to see who had done it, 
the woman came, full of fear and trembling, and fell 
at His feet, and told Him the truth. 

And Jesus said to her, " Daughter, your faith has 
cured you ; go in peace, and be healed of your 
plague." 

258 




259 



STORY OF A WIDOW'S SON 261 

While He was speaking, they came from the 
house of Jairus, saying, " Your daughter is dead ; 
why do you trouble the Teacher any more ? " 

But Jesus said, " Fear not, only believe." 

When they came to the house they found the 
hired mourners playing flutes and howling. Jesus 
was vexed, and He said, " Why do you make this 
noise? The child is not dead. She is asleep." 

Then they laughed and mocked at Him, for they 
knew she was dead. But Jesus, putting all the 
strangers out, took with Him only the father and 
mother of the child and Peter, James, and John, and 
went into the room where the child was. Taking 
her by the hand, He said in the language of the 
country, " Talitha cumi" which means, " Little maid, 
arise." 

And immediately she rose up and walked. Then 
He told them to give her something to eat. Her 
parents were amazed, as well they might be ; but 
Jesus commanded them to tell nobody what had 
been done. 

We read in the Gospels of two other cases in 
which Jesus raised the dead. 

One of these is that of the widow's son. It is 
found in the Gospel of Luke. As Jesus was draw- 
ing near to the gate of a little city called Nain, He 
met a funeral coming out. It was a particularly sad 
funeral, for they were going to bury the only son of 
a widow. Now his mother was left quite alone in 
the world, and as she went along she wept aloud, 



262 JESUS THE PROPHET 

for her heart was broken. When Jesus saw her, He 
was moved with deep feeling for her, and He said to 
her, "Do not weep." 

Then He came near and touched the bier on which 
they were carrying the dead man. There was no 
coffin, only a cloth thrown over him. The men 
who were carrying him stood still, and Jesus said, 
" Young man, I say to you, Arise ! " 

Immediately, he sat up and began to speak. 
Everybody was very much frightened at the sight, 
but they praised God for the great wonder. 

The third case in which Jesus raised the dead is 
that of Lazarus. The story is told us by John, and 
we will take his stories together. 



CHAPTER X 

THE WOMAN WHO WASHED THE FEET OF JESUS 
WITH HER TEARS 

A Pharisee once asked Jesus to dine with Him. 
Jesus went, for He was always ready to be friendly 
to those who would show the least friendliness to 
Him. But the Pharisee was an ill-mannered host, 
as this story will show. 

In the time of Jesus, the Jews used to sit at table 
on couches, leaning on their left elbow, and with 
their feet out behind. When Jesus was like this 
at the Pharisee's table, a woman who had lived a 
sad life, and who bore a bad character, came behind 
Him with a flask of ointment. Stooping over His 
feet, she burst into tears ; then she washed them 
with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. She 
kissed His feet over and over again, and lastly she 
poured the ointment from her flask on them. 

This very much shocked the Pharisee, and he said, 
" If this man were a prophet, He would have found 
out what a bad woman she is who is touching Him." 

Jesus said, " Simon " — for that was the Pharisee's 
name (not Simon Peter, of course, but another 
Simon) — " Simon, I have something to say to you." 

" Go on, Teacher," said Simon. 

" A certain money-lender had two debtors. One 
owed him five hundred shillings, the other fifty. 

263 



264 JESUS THE PROPHET 

When they had nothing to pay with, he forgave 
them both. Which of them, therefore, will love 
him most ? " 

Simon answered, "He, I suppose, to whom he 
forgave the most." 

Jesus said, "You judge rightly." Then turning 
to the woman, He said to Simon, " Do you see this 
woman ? I came into your house ; you gave me no 
water for my feet ; but she has washed my feet with 
her tears, and wiped them with her hair. You gave 
me no kiss ; but she ever since I came in has not 
left off kissing my feet over and over again. You 
did not even anoint my head with oil ; she has 
anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell 
you her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she 
loved much ; but to whom little is forgiven, that 
person loves little." 

And He said to the woman, " Your sins are for- 
given." 

The people who were sitting with Him at the 
Pharisee's table said, " Who is this that even for- 
gives sins ? " 

Jesus took no notice of them. He only spoke to 
the woman again, and said, "Your faith has saved 
you; go in peace." 



CHAPTER XI 

WONDERS IN THE DESERT AND ON THE SEA 

The more Jesus went about preaching and heal- 
ing the greater the crowds were that needed help. 
He was full of pity for them. They were distressed 
and scattered like sheep without a shepherd. So 
He divided the work with His twelve apostles, send- 
ing them out two and two in various directions ; and 
they went about preaching that people should turn 
from their sins and prepare for the coming of the 
kingdom of heaven ; and as they went they cast out 
many evil spirits, and anointed many sick people with 
oil, and healed them. 

When they came back to Jesus they told Him all 
they had done. And He said, " Come by yourselves 
apart into a desert place and rest awhile." 

So He went with them across the lake to the quiet, 
lonely hills on the other side. But the people were 
still so eager they would not let them alone. They 
followed round the shore and met them on the other 
side. Jesus had too much pity for them to refuse 
to work among them again ; and He set Himself to 
teach them many things out there in the wild coun- 
try. As the day was wearing away He was still 
preaching, and the people were still eagerly hang- 
ing on His words. By this time they were getting 

265 



266 JESUS THE PROPHET 

faint and hungry, and that in a very lonely place 
far away from houses and shops. The disciples be- 
gan to get anxious, and they came to Jesus to ask 
Him to send the people away to the villages round 
about to buy themselves something to eat. 

But Jesus said, " Do you give them some food." 

They answered, " Shall we go and buy two hun- 
dred shillings' worth of bread to feed them ? " 

" How many loaves have you ? " He asked. " Go 
and see." 

When they had found out they said, "Five, and 
two fishes." 

Then Jesus had the people arranged in orderly 
lines of hundreds and fifties. Now it was the spring- 
time, when the grass which is burnt brown for most 
of the year is growing up fresh after the rain ; and 
as the people sat in their bright-coloured clothes in 
regular order on the green grass, it all seemed to 
Peter like beds of flowers in a well-kept garden. 

Jesus took the five loaves and the two fishes, and 
looking up to the blue sky overhead, He gave thanks 
to God. Then He broke the loaves and handed the 
pieces to His apostles, and they took the food round 
to the people. Everybody had as much as he could 
eat, although it was reckoned that there were as 
many as five thousand men ; there were even twelve 
baskets full of broken pieces left over. 

When Jesus had sent the crowds away, and made 
His apostles get into the little ship and sail off, He 
went alone up into a mountain to pray. But pres- 



WONDERS IN THE DESERT AND ON THE SEA 267 

ently He saw that the wind was against them, and 
that they were distressed with rowing. So He came 
to them over the water. They were terrified at the 
sight of Him. They thought it must be a ghost. 
As He seemed to be passing by them they cried out 
for fear. But the next moment they heard the voice 
of Jesus coming over the water, " Be of good cheer ; 
it is I ; be not afraid." 

Then He came up to them into the boat ; the 
wind dropped ; and they soon reached the place for 
which they were making. 

These are indeed wonderful narratives. We can- 
not even picture to our minds what Jesus did to 
make the food enough for all. 



Ill 

Jesus the King 
chapter I 

AMONG THE HEATHEN 

We now come to a great change in the life of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen Him going about 
among crowds of people, speaking to them like a 
prophet, and healing their sick, and doing other 
wonders. But from the time we have come to He 
lived a quiet life in very out-of-the-way places. 

I must tell you how this came about. You will 
remember that the strict religious people and the 
teachers of religion had been offended at Jesus, and 
had turned against Him and begun to plot for His 
death. The chief Of the Jews sent down spies to 
Galilee to watch Him. But the worst thing was 
that the people of the towns and villages who had 
lately flocked to hear Him wCre disappointed with 
Him. If He had come out as a fighting leader 
against the government of Rome, and offered to be 
the king of the Jews, that would have delighted 
them immensely, and they would have gathered 
round Him for a mad insurrection. But He did 

268 



AMONG THE HEATHEN 269 

nothing of the kind. And some of His sayings 
were very hard to follow. Then many who had 
been His disciples fell away and left Him. 

Jesus set out with the faithful few who still clung 
to Him, when so many of His old followers had fallen 
off, and travelled right up to the heathen country by 
the shore of the Mediterranean Sea over the borders 
of Tyre and Sidon. He went into a house and did 
not wish it to be known that He was there. But 
the fame of Him had reached even this distant place. 
A woman whose little daughter was very much 
afflicted had heard about Him. She was not a 
Jewess ; she was a native of the heathen country. 
Still she prayed -Jesus to come and heal the child. 

Jesus made an answer that does not read at all 
like Him. " Let the children first be fed," He said, 
" for it is not fit to take the children's bread and 
throw it to dogs." 

The Jews called the heathen dogs. But you may 
be sure Jesus did not think of them in so unkind a 
way. Still, during His life on earth His work was 
among the Jews ; and perhaps He spoke as He did 
to the poor, troubled woman to see what she was 
like, and if she could still believe in Him when He 
seemed unkind. 

She answered, " Yes, Sir, but even the dogs under 
the table eat of the children's crumbs." 

It was a clever answer, and a brave one too, and 
full of hope. She would not give up ; for you see 
she was a mother. Jesus was very pleased with her 



270 JESUS THE KING 

answer, and He told her that for the sake of that 
saying her daughter was cured. When she went 
home she found the child lying on her bed at rest 
and cured. 

After this Jesus went down to the half-heathen 
country on the east of the sea of Galilee. There 
He worked very few miracles, and these seemed to 
come with difficulty, not at all like His earlier mir- 
acles, perhaps because there was not much faith in 
Him now among the people. 

Once they brought Him a deaf and dumb man, 
and begged Him to lay His hand on him. Jesus 
took the man aside from the people, and put His 
fingers in his ears, and spat, and touched his tongue. 
Then He looked up to heaven, and sighed, and said, 
" Ephthatha ! " — which means, "Be opened." 

The man's ears were opened, and his tongue loosed, 
and he began to speak plainly. 

About this time they brought a blind man to 
Jesus, and begged Him to touch him. Jesus took 
the man by the hand and led him out of the village. 
When He had spit on his eyes and laid His hands 
on them, He asked him, " Do you see anything ? " 

The man looked up and said, " I see the men ! 
They look like trees walking ! " 

Jesus laid His hands on him again ; and he looked 
hard, and at last he got his sight perfect. 



CHAPTER II 

THE GREAT QUESTION 

Jesus went again to the very borders of Palestine 
on the north, this time to the foot of the great snow- 
covered Mount Hermon, a mountain that is nearly 
ten thousand feet above the sea level ; and he came 
to a new town, called Csesarea — as a compliment to 
one of the Caesars of Rome. At this place there 
were splendid villas and lovely gardens, and a 
heathen temple of Pan, the god of nature, by a 
cave where the River Jordan rushes out of the very 
heart of the mountain, maiden-hair ferns hanging 
over it, and then plunges into a thicket of green 
bushes. It is the most beautiful place in all 
Palestine. 

When Jesus was here with His disciples, far away 
from His own country, and among signs of the 
pomp and splendour of heathenism, He put a great 
question to them. But first He asked, "Who do 
men say that I am ? " 

And they told Him, " Some John the Baptist, and 
others Elijah, and others one of the prophets," for 
the Jews had a fancy that perhaps these great men 
might have come back from the dead. 

Then Jesus asked them, "But who do you say 
that I am?" That was the great question for them. 

271 



272 JESUS THE KING 

Peter answered, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
the living God." 

So Peter had found out the secret. Jesus had 
never told him. From living with Him and watch- 
ing Him God had led Peter to see that Jesus, who 
went about like a poor man, was the promised 
Saviour ; yes, that He was the Son oe God. 

Jesus told His disciples not to tell anybody that 
He was the Christ. People would not understand. 
They would expect Him to be a king like David, 
and to fight against the Romans. But He had come 
to reign in the hearts of His people, and to fight 
against wickedness with the sword of truth. 

Jesus then began to teach His disciples something 
they had never dreamed of, and which dreadfully 
frightened and distressed them. He said that He 
would have to suffer many things from the principal 
Jews, and be killed, and be raised up on the third 
day. 

Peter, suddenly seizing hold of Him, cried, " God 
have mercy on you ! this shall never be ! " 

Now this word of His warm-hearted friend was 
really a temptation of the Evil Spirit, and Jesus 
knew it, so He cried out in anger, " Get you behind 
me, Satan." 

Then He went on to say to all His disciples, " If 
any man wishes to come after Me, let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For 
whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it ; and 
whoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it." 



THE GREAT QUESTION 273 

Another time, a little later, when He was teaching 
His friends not to seek the best places for them- 
selves, He said, " The Son of Man came not to be 
served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom 
for many." So you see He taught that it was neces- 
sary He should die to do His great work of saving 
the world. 



CHAPTER III 

THE TRANSFIGURATION 

Six days after this Jesus took Peter and James 
and John up the great mountain apart by them- 
selves. Then a marvellous thing happened. As He 
was praying His face was changed most gloriously 
and His clothes became white and dazzling. Two 
men were with Him talking about His death. They 
were Moses and Elijah, come from the world of 
spirits. Peter and James and John were very 
sleepy at the time. Still, they kept enough awake 
to see the bright light and the two men with Jesus. 

And Peter said, " Master, it is good for us to be 
here. Let us make three booths, one for you and 
one for Moses and one for Elijah." 

But he did not know what he was saying; they 
were all very much frightened. Next a cloud came 
over them, and a voice was heard out of the cloud, 
saying, " This is my beloved Son; hear Him." 
Suddenly, as they looked round, the strange sights 
had all vanished. There was only Jesus left. 

When they came down from the mountain and 
drew near to the other disciples they saw a crowd, 
and the people all in confusion. Jesus asked what 
was the matter. One of the people in the crowd 
cried out, " Teacher, look on my son, I pray you, 

274 



THE TRANSFIGURATION 275 

for he is my only child. A spirit seizes him sud- 
denly, and he becomes convulsed. He is pining 
away. I brought him to your disciples, but they 
could not cure him." 

And Jesus answered, " Oh, you unbelieving and 
perverse people. Bring him to me." 

So they brought him. When he saw Jesus the 
poor boy fell down in a fit. 

Jesus asked, " How long is it since this has come 
on him ? " 

"From a child; and often it has made him fall 
into the fire or the water. But now, if you can do 
anything, have pity on us and help us." 

"If you can! "said Jesus. "All things are pos- 
sible to him that believes." 

The father cried out at once with tears, "I do 
believe; help my unbelief." 

When Jesus saw the crowd gathering round 
angrily, he left off talking to the father, and turning 
to the boy, he said, " Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I 
command thee come out of him, and enter no more 
into him." 

With a great scream the boy fell on the ground in 
convulsions. Then he lay quite still like a dead 
child, so that the people said, "He is dead." But 
Jesus took him by the hand and raised him, and he 
stood up perfectly cured. 

When Jesus was alone with His disciples, they 
asked Him, " Why could not we cast it out? " 

He answered, " This can only be done by prayer." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE LOST SON 

Although most of the people had now turned 
against Jesus, many of those who were despised and 
hated, the tax-gatherers and persons of bad char- 
acter, drew near to listen to His preaching. This 
greatly offended the people who thought themselves 
very religious, and they complained, saying, " This 
man receives sinners, and eats with them." 

But Jesus asked what man among them who had 
a hundred sheep, and lost one, would not leave the 
ninety-nine and go to seek the lost sheep, and when 
he had found it lay it on his shoulders with rejoic- 
ing ? Or what woman having ten pieces of silver — 
women in the East carry their money as head orna- 
ments — if she lost one would not sweep the house 
till she had found it ? Now Jesus was just hunting 
for lost sheep and lost treasures. That was why He 
went about among these people of bad character. 

To teach the same lesson He said, "A certain 
man had two sons ; and the younger of them said 
to his father, ' Father, give me the share of your 
property that is coming to me.' 

" And the father divided his living among them. 

" Not many days after the younger son gathered 
all together, and took his journey into a far coun- 

276 



THE LOST SON 277 

try ; and there he wasted his property with riotous 
living. And when he had spent it all, there was a 
terrible famine in that country, and he began to be 
in want. 

"And he went and joined himself to one of the 
citizens of that country, who sent him into the fields 
to feed swine. And he would gladly have been filled 
with the bean pods that the swine were fed on, and 
nobody gave him anything. 

" But when he came to himself, he said, ' How 
many hired servants of my father's have bread 
enough and to spare, and I am perishing here with 
hunger. I will arise, and go to my father, and 
will say to him, " Father, I have sinned against 
heaven, and in your sight ; I am no more worthy 
to be called your son ; make me as one of your 
hired servants." ' 

" And he got up and went to his father. 

" But while he was still far off his father saw 
him, and was full of pity for him, and ran, and 
fell on his neck, and kissed him. 

" And the son said to him, ' Father, I have sinned 
against heaven and in your sight ; I am no more 
worthy to be called your son.' 

" But the father said to his slaves, 4 Bring out 
quickly the best robe, and put it on him ; and put 
a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring 
the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and make 
merry ; for this my son was dead and is alive again ; 
he was lost, and is found.' 



278 JESUS THE KING 

" And they began to be merry. 

" Now his elder son was in the field ; and as he 
drew near the house he heard music and dancing. 
He called to him one of the slaves and asked what 
it all meant. 

" And he said to him, ' Your brother has come ; 
and your father has killed the fatted calf, because 
he has received him safe and sound.' 

"But he was angry and would not go in. His 
father came out and coaxed him. 

" But he answered, and said to his father, ' See ! 
these many years I have been serving you, and I 
never disobeyed one of your orders ; and yet you 
never gave me a kid that I might make merry with 
my friends. But when this son of yours has come, 
who has been eating up your living with bad com- 
pany, you killed the fatted calf for him ! ' 

" And he said, ' Son, you are always with me, 
and all that is mine is yours. But it was fit to 
make merry and be glad ; for your brother was 
dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and is 
found.'" 



CHAPTER V 

THE TRAVELLER, THE ROBBERS, AND THE NEIGH- 
BOUR 

A lawyer once stood up to ask Jesus what he 
should do to inherit eternal life. 

Jesus said, " What is written in the law ? How 
do you read it ? " 

And he answered, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and 
thy neighbour as thyself." 

" You have answered right," said Jesus; "do this, 
and you shall live." 

But the lawyer wanted to get the best of the 
talk. So he went on and asked, " And who is my 
neighbour ? " 

Here is the answer Jesus made : 

" A certain man was going down from Jerusalem 
to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped 
him, and beat him, and went off, leaving him half 
dead. 

" And it happened that a certain priest was going 
down that way, and when he saw him he passed by 
on the other side. 

"And in the same way a Levite " — that is one 
of the people appointed to wait on the priests in 
the temple — "when he came to the place and saw 
him passed by on the other side. 

279 



280 JESUS THE KING 

" But a certain Samaritan " — that is one of a race 
of people whom the Jews hated and despised — " as 
he journeyed came where the poor man was lying. 
And when he saw him he was full of pity for him. 
He went up to him, and bound up his wounds, pour- 
ing on them oil and wine. Then he set him on his 
own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care 
of him. The next day he took out two shillings, 
and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ' Take care 
of him, and whatever you spend more, when I come 
back I will repay you.' Which of these three do 
you think proved to be a neighbour to him that fell 
among the robbers ? " 

" He that showed mercy on him," said the lawyer. 

Jesus said to him, " Go, and do likewise." 

It happened, a short time after this, that ten men 
who were lepers met Jesus. While they were a 
great way off they cried aloud, saying, " Jesus, Mas- 
ter, have pity on us ! " 

When He saw them He said, " Go and show your- 
selves to the priests." For it was the law that when 
a leper was healed he must go to one of the priests 
to show that he was cured. As they went they 
were healed. Then one of them turned back and 
gave thanks to God with a loud voice, and he was a 
Samaritan. 

Jesus said, " Were there not ten cleansed ? But 
where are the nine ? " You see, it was only the 
Samaritan, the despised stranger, who was thankful. 




Travelling with Scrip and Girdle 

281 



CHAPTER VI 

JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 

After Jesus had been travelling about in the 
most out-of-the-way places for some time, He passed 
through Galilee once more. But He did not wish 
anybody to know it, for He was teaching His disci- 
ples that He must be delivered up, and be killed, 
and rise again. They could not understand Him, 
but they were afraid to ask what He meant. 

Jesus walked first, and His disciples walked be- 
hind Him. On the way He heard them quarrelling 
together. When they had reached Capernaum, and 
were in the house, He asked them what it was about. 
They were ashamed to answer ; for they had been 
disputing as to which of them was the greatest. 
They knew this would grieve their Master, it was 
quite the opposite to His spirit. So they were silent. 

But He could see what was the matter ; so He 
said, " If any man wishes to be first, the way is to 
make himself last of all and servant of all." 

To teach this lesson the better Jesus called a little 
child to Him. Children were never afraid of Jesus; 
and this child came to Him without fear. Jesus 
took him up and kissed and fondled him ; and you 
may be sure the little fellow was as happy as he 
could be, nestling in the kind arms of Jesus. He 
had no idea what the great Teacher was talking 

283 



284 JESUS THE KING 

about ; he never guessed that he was there as an 
object-lesson to those big, grown-up men. If he 
had thought so it would have spoilt it all. But now 
Jesus held him up in the midst of them — this simple, 
trusting, little child — while He said, "Except you 
turn, and become as little children, you shall by no 
means enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whoever 
shall humble himself as this little child, he is the 
greatest in the kingdom of heaven." 

Then He went on to teach kindness to children. 
" Whoever," He said, " receives one such little child 
in IVty name is receiving Me. But," He added, 
" whoever makes one of these little ones, who trust 
in Me, go wrong, it would be well for him to have a 
great millstone hung about his neck, and for him to 
be sunk into the middle of the sea." 

It was a little while after this, when Jesus was 
down in the south country, on the other side of the 
River Jordan, that the people brought their children 
to Jesus. Of course, you all know this story very 
well. 

Jesus had just been teaching the people, and they 
were very interested in His answers to some puz- 
zling questions. The coming of the children seemed 
a tiresome interruption. Some people always think 
children in the way. Jesus never thought so. Why 
not ? For one thing, because He was full of love 
and kindness. And then there was something of 
the child in Jesus. A great poet has said, " Heaven 
lies about us in our infancy." 



JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 285 

When you are no longer infants, when you are 
growing boys and girls in the school-room and at 
play, it is not so easy to keep near to heaven. But 
Jesus was always like the little child ; heaven was 
always quite close to Him. 

So when the disciples scolded the people who were 
bringing the children, for troubling Jesus, He was 
angry with them, and said, " Suffer the little chil- 
dren to come to Me, and forbid them not ; for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." Then He did more 
than was expected. Jewish mothers used to bring 
their children for learned rabbis to lay their hands 
on and bless. Jesus took these children up in His 
arms first, and then He put His hands on them and 
blessed them. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE VERY EAGER YOUNG MAN 

Jesus was gradually working His way round 
towards Jerusalem, where He knew He was to die. 
As He came out of the quiet parts where He had 
been staying, and turned into the main road up to 
the city, there was a young man who had been wait- 
ing in the way for Him. Now, this was a very eager 
young man. Directly he saw Jesus he ran to meet 
Him, and fell down on his knees before Him, burst- 
ing out at once with the great question that he 
longed to have answered : " Good Teacher, what 
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life ? " 

Jesus said, " Why do you call me good? Nobody 
is good except one, that is God." 

Jesus did not like to hear him using the word 
" good " so lightly. To be really good is the great- 
est of all things in the world. But it is the hardest, 
too. The very best people are ready to say, " Oh, 
no ; we are not good. We are all sinners in the 
sight of God, and in our own consciences." Jesus 
was really good. He never had to own to sin. But 
the young man could not see the heart of Jesus ; 
and he did not know the nature of Jesus, that He 
was the very Son of God. So he used the word 

286 



THE VERY EAGER YOUNG MAN 287 

" good " too lightly. And Jesus would not receive 
it in that way. 

Then Jesus went on to speak of the command- 
ments. Now the young man was simple, and well- 
meaning, and free from vice. 

So he could say innocently, " Teacher, all these 
have I kept from my youth." 

He did not know all that is meant even by those 
old commandments of the Jews. Still, he had not 
been a thief and a murderer, and he had kept to the 
commandments in the ordinary way of a respectable, 
well-behaved young man's life. - - 

Jesus was pleased with his openness and eager- 
ness, and when He looked into his earnest young 
face, He loved him. This was just the sort of man 
He delighted to have for a disciple. So He called 
him to follow Him, as He had called the fishermen 
from their nets a long while before. 

But it was harder for this young man to obey 
than it had been for them. They were poor, hard- 
working toilers of the sea ; and they had not much 
to leave behind them. But this was a very rich 
young man. 

Jesus must have found it painful to say the words 
that would search him out to the bottom of his heart : 
" There is one thing you are wanting in. Go and 
sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you 
shall have treasure in heaven ; and come, follow me." 

What an answer to his question ! He had never 
expected this. When he heard the words of Jesus, 



288 JESUS THE KING 

all the brightness went out of his face ; his counte- 
nance fell, and he went away full of sorrow. 

Jesus was very sad, too, and as He looked round 
on His disciples He said, " How hard is it for those 
people who have riches to enter into the kingdom 
of God ! " 

They were amazed at His language. But He 
repeated the sorrowful truth in a stronger way. 
"It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's 
eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom 
of God." 

Still more astonished, they asked, " Who then can 
be saved ? " 

Jesus looked round on them as He answered, 
" With men it is impossible, but not with God ; 
for all things are possible with God." 



CHAPTER VIII 

ZACCH^EUS AND BARTIM^US 

Jesus had given the twelve warning several times 
that He would have to suffer and die. He saw that 
His enemies were growing more determined, and 
that His end was drawing near. But He would 
not try to escape it ; to have done so would have 
been to have deserted His great task. He said 
once that it would not do for a prophet to perish 
out of Jerusalem. And, therefore, He set His face 
steadily to go up to Jerusalem. 

On the way He came to the city of Jericho, down 
by the Jordan, a city famous for its trade in balsam 
— the " balm of Gilead " — a very busy place. 

Now there was at Jericho a man named Zacchseus. 
He was one of the head tax-gatherers, and he had 
made himself rich in his office. This man wanted 
to see Jesus out of curiosity, because He was famous, 
and people talked a great deal about Him. But Zac- 
chseus was very short, and, as he thought he would 
not be able to get near to Jesus because of the 
crowd, he was afraid he would miss the sight. So 
he climbed up into a sycamore tree by the wayside, 
and sat there among the great leaves ready for the 
time when Jesus would pass by. 

When Jesus came to the place, He looked up, 
and called him by name. 

u 289 



290 JESUS THE KING 

« 

44 Zacchseus," He said, " make haste, and come 
down ; for to-day I must stay at your house." 

Zacchseus was astonished and delighted. He 
hurried down from the tree, and took Jesus home 
with him. 

When the people saw it, they found fault, say- 
ing, "He has gone to stay with a man that is a 
sinner." 

But Zacchseus stood up and said to Jesus, " Lord, 
half of my goods I will give to the poor ; and if I 
have cheated a person out of anything, I will pay 
him back four times over." 

And Jesus said to him, " To-day is salvation come 
to this house ; since he also is a son of Abraham. 
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that 
which was lost." 

Either when He was going into Jericho, or when 
He was going out after staying at the house of 
Zaccheeus and passing through the city — and we 
cannot say which, because two of the Gospel 
accounts say it was one way, and one that it was 
the other — as Jesus was going along the road with 
His disciples and a great number of other people, 
a blind man named Bartimseus was sitting by the 
wayside begging, as blind men in the East are 
often to be found sitting begging in the present 
day. 

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth who 
was coming along, he began to cry out, " Jesus, thou 
son of David, have pity on me." 



ZACCH^EUS AND BARTIM^US 291 

This title, " Son of David," was very startling, for 
it meant the Messiah, the expected King of the 
Jews. Ever since Peter's confession at the foot of 
Hermon, a few of the disciples of Jesus had known 
that He was the Messiah, and no doubt a great 
many more were now coming to suspect it. But 
He had always told His friends to keep this quiet. 
Now here was a beggar shouting it out, and that, 
too, just when Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, the 
most dangerous of all places. The disciples were 
alarmed, and they tried to hush the man. But the 
more they scolded him the louder he shouted, and 
still the same title — "Thou Son of David." 

The poor fellow's blundering eagerness did not 
displease Jesus. He was quite brave, and not at 
all afraid for Himself, and He knew that now at the 
very end of His life there could be no harm in it 
being known who He was. So He stood still and 
said, "Call him." 

And they called to the blind man, saying, " Take 
heart, get up, He is calling you." 

At that he flung away his cloak, sprang up, and 
came to Jesus. 

" What do you want Me to do to you ? " said 
Jesus. 

"Rabboni" (Honoured Teacher), he answered, "I 
want to have my sight again." 

" Go," said Jesus ; " your faith has saved you." 

And immediately he got his sight again ; and he 
followed Jesus. 



IV 

The Last Week 

CHAPTER I 

THE TWO SISTERS 

When the Jews from the country places went up 
to Jerusalem for the great feasts, as there were so 
many of them that they could not all stay in the 
city, some would lodge in the villages round about. 
One of these villages was Bethany, about two miles 
from Jerusalem, a little on the further side of the 
Mount of Olives. Here Jesus used to stay with His 
disciples, at the house of a well-to-do lady named 
Martha. 

Martha had a sister named Mary ; and it hap- 
pened once, at an earlier time when He was visiting 
them, that Mary sat at His feet listening to His 
teaching, while Martha was busy and flustered in 
making great preparations for the meal. So she 
came to Jesus, saying, " Lord, do you not care that 
my sister has left me to serve alone ? Tell her to 
help me." 

But Jesus answered, " Martha, Martha, you are 
anxious and troubled about many things. A few 
things, or even one, would be enough. For Mary 

292 



THE TWO SISTERS 293 

has chosen the good part which shall not be taken 
away from her." 

Martha did not understand Jesus. He did not 
want the sisters to be put about in making grand 
preparations with a number of courses at dinner to 
please Him. He did not care for such things at all. 
A few things on the table, or even only one simple 
dish, would quite satisfy Him. He would much 
rather the sisters took their work quietly, and had 
time for talk with Him about what He really cared 
for, the Kingdom of Heaven. That was what Mary 
had chosen. 

During His last visit to Jerusalem, while Jesus 
was again staying in Bethany, it happened that He 
was sitting at table in the house of Simon the leper 
— perhaps Simon was Martha's husband — when a 
woman came Avith a flask of very costly sweet- 
scented ointment, and broke the flask, and poured 
the ointment over His head. 

Some of the people present there were vexed and 
angry at this, and they said to themselves, " What 
is the use of this waste of the ointment? For it 
might have been sold for more than three hundred 
shillings, and given to the poor." 

But Jesus said, "Let her alone. She has done 
what she could ; she has anointed My body before- 
hand for the burying of it." Then he promised 
that wherever the Gospel was preached throughout 
the whole world, what this woman had done should 
be spoken of in memory of her. 



294 THE LAST WEEK 

In the Gospel of John we read that the woman 
who made this gift of love to Jesus was Martha's 
sister Mary, and that the complaint about the waste 
was made by Judas. 

It was just after this that Judas, who was one of 
the twelve, went to the chief priests and offered to 
give Jesus up to them, asking what they would pay 
him for doing so. They were delighted, and they 
gave him thirty pieces of silver, like thirty of our 
half-dollars, only worth more, just the price of a 
slave. Judas agreed to sell his Master for the price 
of a slave! He loved money, and he was vexed 
with Jesus for not being the sort of Christ he ex- 
pected, a great conquering king. So the wicked 
man made his bargain, and from this time he looked 
about for a chance of giving Jesus up to His 
enemies. 



CHAPTER H 

PALM SUNDAY 

Jesus had no longer any need to keep secret the 
truth that He was the Christ. By this time He had 
too many enemies for His friends to think of mak- 
ing Him a leader to fight against the Romans. 
Now, at last, He was ready to let them honour Him 
in a simple rustic way as their King. 

He told two of His disciples to go to a village near 
Bethany. There they would find an ass's colt tied 
up. If anybody questioned them, they were to say, 
" The Lord has need of him." They found the colt 
tied at a door by a street-corner, and, as they began 
to loose him, some of the people standing by asked 
them what they were about, so they answered as 
Jesus had told them, and the people let them go. 

They brought the colt to Jesus. Then they put 
some of their cloaks on it, and Jesus sat on it. 

As He went, some of the people spread their 
cloaks on the road for Him to ride over, and others 
tore down leafy boughs from trees in the fields by 
the wayside and spread them over the road. They 
were very excited. Most of them were pilgrims 
from Galilee who had come up to the feast of the 
Passover. They had lost sight of Him for many 

295 



296 THE LAST WEEK 

months, while He was living quietly in out-of-the- 
way places, till He had fallen in with the troups of 
travellers on the high-road to Jerusalem. Even 
those who had left Him because of His hard sayings 
were glad, indeed, to have Him with them once 
more, especially as He let them honour Him in a 
simple country way as a king. He had never 
allowed anything of the kind in the old days, and no 
doubt that had been one reason why they had grown 
tired of Him. 

Those who went first, and those who followed 
after — both parts of this procession of villagers — 
shouted " Hosanna " — a word which means almost 
the same as " God save the king." 

Some of the Pharisees were vexed, and they said 
to Him, "Teacher, scold your disciples." 

But Jesus answered, " I tell you if these people 
are still, the very stones will cry out." 

So they went up the slope of the Mount of Olives 
from the further side. There is a point at which 
the road turns the corner of a rock. Just as you 
get round the corner the whole city suddenly comes 
into view. When Jesus reached this spot and all 
the city lay spread out before Him in a moment, He 
burst into tears. He was going to die there. But 
it was no thought of Himself that troubled Him. 
He was thinking how the people had rejected Him, 
and how their ruin was coming on them, and He 
wept for Jerusalem, saying, " Oh, that thou hadst 
known in this day, even thou, the things that belong 



PALM SUNDAY 



297 



to thy peace! But now they are hid from thine 
eyes." 

And then He seemed to see the terrible spectacle 
of the siege of the city by its enemies — the armies 
camped round it, and its fall, till not one stone was 
loft on another. 

So His triumph was full of sorrow, not because 
He was riding to His death, though this was the 
case, but because His heart was breaking for the sin 
and ruin of His people. 



CHAPTER III 

JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 

When Jesus had come into Jerusalem riding on 
the ass's colt with His friends about Him shouting 
their Hosannas, He first went to the Temple, and 
looked round on all that was to be seen there. The 
sight grieved and angered Him. But He did not 
say anything at the time, and when it was evening 
He went back to Bethany. The next day He went 
up to the Temple again, and then He did a daring 
thing. 

Every Jew was expected to give a small amount 
of money for the expenses of the Temple, and this 
had to be paid in Jewish coins. So Jews who 
came from foreign countries had to change their 
money. Jesus found the money-changers at their 
business in the Temple itself. He also saw men 
there selling doves for sacrifices. The high priest 
used to keep the doves at the Mount of Olives, and 
he made a good profit out of this sale. He would 
be very angry if anybody interfered with it. 

Most likely these things were being done in the 
outer court of the Temple ; this was called " The 
Court of the Gentiles " — the people who were not 
Jews. The noise of the traffic would sadly distract 
these people at their prayers. The Jews did not 



JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 299 

care for that ; they despised the Gentiles, and they 
had their own more quiet part farther in the Temple. 
But Jesus was angry at the sight. He drove out 
the people who were buying and selling in the Tem- 
ple, upset the tables of the money-changers, sending 
their money rolling over the pavement, turned over 
the seats of the dove-sellers, and sent back the men 
who were walking through the Temple, carrying 
their tools and their parcels as though it were a com- 
mon street of the city or a mere market-place. 

"Is it not written," He said, "My house shall be 
called a house of prayer for all the nations ? but you 
have made it a den of robbers." 

This enraged the chief priests, and they would 
have liked to have killed Him on the spot. But 
they were afraid of the people, who admired His 
teaching, and who had no love for the proud, aristo- 
cratic priests. 

Still, when they saw Him again, they asked Him 
what right He had to do these things. It was a 
very natural question. But as He knew they were 
only on the lookout for a chance to catch Him, He 
said He would give them His answer if they would 
first answer a question He would put to them — 
" The baptism of John — was it from heaven or 
from men ? " 

This was a clever question. They did not know 
what to answer. If they said from heaven, Jesus 
would ask, " Why, then, did you not believe him ? " 
Yet they dared not say from men, for fear of the 



300 THE LAST WEEK 

people ; because all the people held John to be a 
prophet. 

So they said, " We do not know." 

And Jesus said, " Neither do I tell you by what 
right I do these things." 

Another time when He was up at the Temple, 
He sat down in the outer court near a great chest, 
which had thirteen trumpet-shaped openings for the 
people to drop their offerings into. A number of 
rich people came along, and managed to let it be 
seen that they were putting in a good deal of money. 
Then came a poor widow ; and she only put in two 
mites, which make up a farthing. 

When He saw it Jesus called His disciples, and 
said to them, u I tell you truly this poor widow put 
in more than all the rest ; for they gave out of their 
abundance ; but she gave out of her want, all she 
had, all her living." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE LORD'S SUPPER 

Jesus and His disciples had come up to Jerusalem 
to keep the Feast of the Passover. When the time 
came they asked Him, " Where do you wish us to 
go and make ready for you to eat the Passover ? " 

He sent off two of His disciples for this work, 
saying to them, " Go into the city till you meet a 
man carrying a pitcher of water " — a very unusual 
thing, for it is always the women who carry water 
in the East — " follow him, and wherever he enters 
say, ' The Teacher says, Where is My dining-room, 
where I am to eat the Passover with My disciples ? ' " 

This had to be done secretly, because the enemies 
of Jesus had spies about on the watch to catch Him, 
and He very much wanted to be able to take this 
last supper with His disciples before His death, 
which He knew must be quite near now. 

The two disciples set off and found the man with 
the pitcher. They followed him, and said what 
Jesus had told them, and the man of the house let 
them in. Inside they saw the cushions spread out 
on the seats all ready for the feast. Then they 
went and got the lamb and the herbs and fruit 
and bread that were wanted for the proper kind 
of meal eaten on Passover night. 

301 



302 THE LAST WEEK 

In the evening Jesus came with the twelve, and 
they sat down to eat the lamb. Next came a dish 
called Charosheth, a mixture of figs, dates, and 
almonds, with vinegar. Between each course a 
cup of light wine mixed with water went round. 
While they were eating, Jesus said, " Truly, I tell 
you, one of you shall betray Me ; yes, one that is 
eating with Me." 

This greatly distressed them, and they said to 
Him, one by one, "Is it I?" 

" It is one of the twelve," said Jesus. " It is he 
who is dipping with Me in the dish." 

Now at the Passover it was usual for each per- 
son to take a bunch of bitter herbs and dip it 
into the common dish of the fruit and eat it. Just 
when Jesus was dipping into this dish, Judas 
dipped too. So Judas was pointed out as the 
traitor. 

While they were eating, Jesus took some bread. 
It had been made without yeast to raise it, so that 
it was hard and flat like a biscuit. When He had 
given thanks He broke it, and gave it to His dis- 
ciples, saying, " Take, eat ; this is My body, which 
is given for you." 

After supper He took the cup, and when He 
had given thanks for that too, He gave it to them, 
saying, " Drink ye all of it. This cup is the new 
covenant in My blood which is shed for many for 
the forgiveness of sins. This do, as often as you 
do it, in remembrance of Me." 



the lord's supper 303 

This was the beginning of what we call the 
Lord's Supper. It is a feast which Jesus Christ 
Himself gave to His people. It comes down to 
us from Him. Every time it is truly taken now 
Jesus is there, giving it to His people, and offer- 
ing His love and His saving power. 



CHAPTER V 

IN THE GARDEN 

At the Passover it was usual to sing six psalms 
— from the 113th to the 118th. Two were sung 
during the feast ; the others at the close. When 
Jesus had sung these last psalms with His disci- 
ples, He left the house with them, and took them 
through the dark, narrow streets to the gate on 
the eastern side of the city. They went out of 
this gate, and down the stony road to the ravine 
of the Kidron. When they had crossed, they 
found themselves on the slope of the Mount of 
Olives. 

Here was a place called Gethsemane. The word 
means an olive-press. Perhaps men used to squeeze 
the oil out of the olives that grew on the side of 
the hill at this place. Jesus often came here at 
night, because it was a quiet place for thinking 
and praying, and yet not far from the city, and 
near the road back to Bethany. 

On the way Jesus became very sad, and He told 
His disciples that they were all going to leave 
Him. They would not hear of it ; and Peter said, 
"Though all the others may, I will not." 

"Truly, I tell you," said Jesus, "that to-day, 
even to-night, before the cock crows twice you 
will deny Me thrice." 

304 



IN THE GAKDEN 305 

But Peter was quite passionate in declaring he 
would not do such a thing. 

" If I must die with you," he said, " I will not 
deny you." So they all said. 

When they had reached Gethsemane, He said to 
His disciples, "Sit here while I pray." 

Then He took with Him Peter, and James, and 
John. As they were going on a little further, He 
became quite amazed and distressed, and He said 
to His three friends, " My soul is most sorrowful, 
even to death; stay here and watch." Then He 
went forward a little, and as He went He fell down 
more than once. He was so faint, and weary, and 
sick at heart. And He prayed that if it were 
possible the hour might pass from Him, and said, 
" Abba, Father, all things are possible with Thee ; 
take this cup away from Me. Still, not what I 
will, but what Thou wilt." 

When He came back to His three friends, He 
found them asleep. 

" Simon," He said, sadly, " could you not watch 
with Me one hour? Watch and pray, that you 
may not enter into temptation." 

Then He went away again, and prayed in the 
same words. Three times he did so. He was in 
a great agony. The sweat came from Him like 
drops of blood. The last time He came back and 
found them sleeping again, He said, " Sleep on 
now, and take your rest." 

But the next moment there was a flash of torches 



306 THE LAST WEEK 

and the sound of many people. It was the coming 
of Judas and the soldiers. 

" Up ! " said Jesus, " we must be going. See ! he 
who is going to betray Me is at hand." 

While He was speaking Judas came up, and 
with him a number of men armed with swords and 
clubs. 

Judas went straight to Jesus, and kissed Him 
with a great show of love. It was his sign to the 
soldiers, that they might know which was Jesus. 
Then they seized Him, and His disciples all left 
Him and ran for their lives. 






CHAPTER VI 

THE JEWISH TRIAL 

Jesus was now a prisoner in charge of the Temple 
guard. They led Him back to the city, and took 
Him to the house of the high priest, Caiaphas, who 
was the chief authority among the Jews. Although 
it was the middle of the night, the high priest was 
up waiting for Jesus, and he had some of the prin- 
cipal Jews with him. They were seated in a semi- 
circle on cushions spread round the floor, turbans 
on their heads, with Caiaphas in the middle. 
When Jesus was brought in, they made Him stand 
before them, though it was usual to allow prisoners 
to sit. 

Several witnesses had been got together by these 
very Jews who were to be the judges of Jesus. 
That was most unfair. The witnesses came and 
swore false things about Jesus, and nobody could 
believe them. Some came and swore that Jesus 
had threatened to pull down the Temple and build 
it again in three days. But they contradicted one 
another. 

Then Caiaphas sprang up in a rage, and stood 
face to face with Jesus, glaring at Him. All the 
witnesses had broken down. The only thing was 
to force the prisoner to say something that would 

307 



308 THE LAST WEEK 

make Him condemn Himself. Caiaphas com- 
manded Him to say on oath whether He was the 
Christ. 

Jesus answered, "I am; and you shall see the 
Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and 
coming in the clouds of heaven." 

At this the high priest tore his clothes, as a sign 
that he was shocked to hear Jesus using such 
dreadful words. " What further need have we of 
witnesses ? " he cried. " You have heard the blas- 
phemy ; what do you think ? " They said He was 
worthy of death. And some of these great gentle- 
men of Jerusalem spat on Him, and cuffed Him, 
and jeered at Him. 

While this was going on Peter, who had followed 
Jesus at a distance, was standing by a fire in the 
outer court, warming himself, for it is very cold at 
night in the spring up in Jerusalem among the 
mountains. One of the maid-servants of the high 
priest, passing by, looked at him, and said, "You 
were with the Nazarene — Jesus ? " 

Peter denied. He said he did not know what 
she meant. Then he went out to the porch; and 
a cock crew. The maid would not give in. She 
began gossiping with the idlers standing about, 
saying, "This is one of them." Peter denied it a 
second time. Now he was being watched, and he 
knew it. This frightened him very much. When 
some of them came and said, " Certainly you are 
one of them ; you are a Galilean" — they knew him 



THE JEWISH TRIAL 309 

by his speech — Peter began to curse and swear, 
saying, " I do not know this man of whom you are 
speaking." Then the cock crew again. At that 
moment the soldiers were leading Jesus away after 
His trial. As He passed He gave Peter one look. 
It was enough. Peter remembered what Jesus had 
said about the cock crowing, and he rushed out and 
burst into an agony of tears. It had all come true! 
He had denied his Lord ! 



CHAPTER VII 

THE ROMAN TRIAL 

Very early in the morning a meeting of the whole 
Jewish council was got together, and this meeting 
ordered Jesus to be taken to the Roman Governor, 
Pontius Pilate, because the Jews were so much 
under the Romans that they had no right to put 
anybody to death. Pilate questioned Jesus whether 
he was the King of the Jews, and Jesus said He 
was. But when the chief priests brought a num- 
ber of things against Him He would not answer a 
word. Pilate wondered at this; but he did not 
find that Jesus was guilty of any crime. He did 
not know what to do. But as Jesus had come from 
Galilee he sent him to Herod, the ruler of that part 
of the country, who happened to be staying in Jeru- 
salem at the time. Herod was delighted. He 
thought this was a compliment to him ; and he had 
long wanted to see Jesus work a miracle. But 
Jesus would do nothing of the kind for a show to 
amuse this bad king, the murderer of John the 
Baptist. And when Herod questioned Him He 
was silent. Then Herod began to mock Him, put- 
ting one of his white cloaks on Him, as though He 
were a king, for Jewish kings wore white robes. 

310 




IS-.--"- v^ 



The Spina Christi 
311 



THE ROMAN TRIAL 313 

Dressed up in this style, He was sent back to 
Pilate. 

At the feast Pilate used to let off one prisoner, 
whoever it might be the Jews asked for. Now 
there was a brigand named Barabbas lying bound 
in the dungeon. Pilate said, " Would you like me 
to let off the King of the Jews ? " 

They shouted back, " Not this man, but Barabbas ! " 

" What then shall I do to Him whom you call 
the King of the Jews ? " 

" Crucify Him ! " 

« Why ? What crime has He committed ? " 

" Crucify Him — crucify Him ! " That was all 
the answer he could get from them. And they 
shouted it again and again, louder and louder. 
The mob took up the cry and shouted it through 
the streets — " Crucify Him ! Crucify Him ! " 
Pilate was frightened. He would like to have let 
off Jesus, for he could see quite clearly that there 
was nothing against Him. But he was afraid of 
the Jews. 

First he gave Jesus up to be scourged. That 
was a most cruel torture. The whip was loaded 
with lead or bones to bruise and tear the flesh of 
the victim, who was stripped to the waist and 
bound to a post while the soldiers lashed Him on 
the back, and even on the head and face. Some- 
times it would kill a man on the spot. After this 
fearful torture the soldiers made sport with their 
prisoner. They flung a soldier's red cloak on Him, 



314 THE LAST WEEK 

or perhaps it was one of Pilate's old cast-off gar- 
ments ; they gathered some of the thorn twigs that 
grow on bushes just outside the walls of Jerusalem, 
and twisted them into a mock garland for His 
head ; and they put a reed in His hands, striking 
Him on the head with it first, and spitting on Him. 
Then they came before Him pretending that He 
was a king, and bowing to Him and mocking Him. 
Jesus took it all in silence. When the soldiers 
were tired of their sport, they took off the purple 
cloak and put on Him His own clothes. It is 
almost too dreadful to write about these things. 
Yet it is good to know that Jesus never broke 
down under the cruel pain, nor lost His temper 
at the insults and mockery. He bore all with 
perfect patience and calmness. It was the cup His 
Father gave Him to drink. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE CRUCIFIXION 

The Jews' way of killing criminals was by 
stoning ; the Roman way for their own people was 
beheading with the sword. But slaves and con- 
quered people were sometimes killed with the dread- 
ful death called crucifixion. Pilate ordered Jesus 
to be punished with the slave's death. 

It was about nine o'clock in the morning when 
they led Jesus out to be crucified. This was to be 
done outside the city, at a place called " The skull." 
They put the cross on His back for Him to carry. 
But after His agony in the garden and the weary 
trials, the cruel scourging and the mockery, Jesus 
was not able to bear it all the way ; and as they 
met a man named Simon, of Cyrene, North Africa, 
coming in from his work in the field, they made 
him carry the cross. 

They fastened Jesus to the cross with nails 
through His hands and His feet. There was a 
wooden peg for Him to sit on when the cross was 
raised up. Over His head they put up this title 
which Pilate had ordered — " The King of the Jews." 

The nailing and lifting must have been terrible 
to bear. But all Jesus said was, " Father, forgive 
them ; for they do not know what they are doing." 

315 



316 THE LAST WEEK 

The soldiers sat down by the cross to watch. 
While they were there they took out their dice 
and threw them to divide the clothes of Jesus 
among them. The people who went by along the 
road mocked at Him. So did the chief priests, 
saying, " He saved others, Himself He cannot 
save." 

There were two robbers crucified with Jesus; 
one on His right hand, and one on His left. Even 
these poor fellow-sufferers mocked Him. But later 
on one of them said to Him, " Remember me when 
You come in Your kingdom." And Jesus answered, 
" To-day you shall be with Me in Paradise. " 

In the middle of the day a great darkness came 
over the city, lasting for three hours, till about 
three o'clock in the afternoon. At that time Jesus 
cried out, " JSloi, Eloi, lama sabachtliani? " which 
means, " My God, My God, why hast Thou for- 
saken Me?" 

Some of the people thought He was calling for 
Elijah. Then somebody got a sponge, and, filling 
it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and held it up 
to His lips. They tried to stop the man, but he 
cried, "'Let me do it : let us see if Elijah will come 
to Him." It was the one little act of kindness 
that was shown to Him on the cross. The end was 
very near now. Soon after this Jesus was heard 
praying, " Father, into Thy hands I commit My 
spirit." Then He cried out very loudly, and His 
head fell forward on His breast. Jesus was dead. 




Joseph of Arimath^a's Tomb 
317 



THE CRUCIFIXION 



319 



When they took Him down from the cross, 
a man named Joseph of Arimathsea, one of the 
principal Jews, went to Pilate and begged the body 
of Jesus. Pilate let him have it, and Joseph had 
it laid in a new tomb, and a great stone rolled in 
front. The women who had come with Jesus from 
Galilee had watched all these terrible things from 
a distance, and now they noticed the tomb where 
His body was laid. 



V 
The Eisen Christ 



chapter I 

THE EMPTY TOMB 

Jesus had been crucified on a Friday, and buried 
in the afternoon of the same day. His friends did 
not like to do anything on the next day, because 
that was the Jews' Sabbath. But very early on 
Sunday morning, before it was quite light, three or 
four women set out for the tomb where the body of 
Jesus had been laid. They were Mary Magdalene, 
Mary the mother of James, and Salome, the mother 
of John and the other James, and perhaps some 
others. On their way they were wondering who 
would roll away the stone for them, for it was very 
heavy. But when they reached the tomb they 
found that the stone had been rolled away. The 
grave, which was a cave in the hillside, was open. 
They went in, and were startled to see some one 
there — a young man, he seemed to be, dressed in a 
white robe, and sitting on the ground at the right- 
hand side of the tomb. He saw how scared they 
were, and he said to them, " Do not be frightened. 

320 



THE EMPTY TOMB 321 

You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who has been 
crucified. He has been raised up. He is not here. 
Look at the place where they laid Him. And go 
quickly, and tell His disciples and Peter that He is 
going before you into Galilee. There you will see 
Him, as He told you." 

When they came out of the tomb, they were 
trembling with excitement and greatly astonished — 
full of fear, and yet full of joy, too. They really 
did not know what to make of it; and they hurried 
back to the city to tell the other disciples what they 
had seen and heard. But the tale they told seemed 
to the disciples mere idle talk. They could not get 
them to believe it. 

If this had been all, it might have been thought 
an idle tale; but a greater wonder happened soon 
after. Jesus was seen again several times. He ap- 
peared to Peter, then to the twelve, then to five 
hundred of His followers at once. Then He ap- 
peared to James, then to all the Apostles, and last 
of all, much later, to Paul. All these six appear- 
ances of Jesus after His death were known to Paul. 
They are quite enough to show that it is not an idle 
tale to say that Jesus rose from the dead. So we 
may be sure that He was seen alive again after death 
several times, by a number of His disciples. And 
we to-day do not worship a dead Christ. He never 
died again. He is living now as truly as when He 
appeared to His friends. 

The coming again of Jesus to them quite changed 



322 THE RISEN CHUIST 

His disciples. When they saw Him seized by His 
enemies, tortured, insulted, crucified, killed, buried, 
it seemed as though this were the end of all their 
hopes. They only met to weep and mourn in misery 
and despair. But after they had seen Him again, 
they were like new men, full of joy and hope and 
courage. It was the rising of Jesus from the 
dead that made such a change in them; and it is 
because He rose from the dead and is living to-day, 
that we have reason to trust Him, and live in the 
joy of His unseen presence. 






CHAPTER II 

EMMAUS 

We read of other appearances of Jesus after He 
had risen from the dead, besides the six that were 
known to Paul. One of the most beautiful stories 
is that which tells of the walk to Emmaus. 

On Easter Day, the very day on which Jesus had 
been raised up from the dead, two of His disciples 
were walking together from Jerusalem to a little 
village out in the country, named Emmaus. As 
they went they talked over the dreadful things that 
had happened on the last Friday. While they were 
talking Jesus drew near, and walked with them, but 
they did not know it was Jesus. He asked them 
what they were talking about. They hardly liked 
to tell a stranger, and they stood still, looking sad, 
till one of them, whose name was Cleopas, said, " Are 
you only a visitor to Jerusalem, and yet do not you 
know the things that have happened there in these 
days?" 

" What things ? " 

" The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a 
prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all 
the people — how the chief priests and our rulers 
gave Him up to be condemned to death, and crucified 
Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was 
to redeem Israel." 

323 



324 THE RISEN CHRIST 

They told Him that it was the third day since 
these things had happened, and they went on to 
describe how some women of their company had 
said they had found the tomb empty, and had seen 
a vision of angels, who said that He was alive. 
They told Him, too, that some of them had gone to 
the tomb and found it, as the women said, empty ; 
but they had not seen Jesus. 

" O foolish men," said Jesus, " how slow you are 
to believe what the prophets have said." And He 
went on to show them from the prophets how these 
things must be. 

When they came to the village where they were 
going, He walked on as though He wanted to go 
further. But they made Him stay, saying, " Abide 
with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far 
spent." 

So He went in to stay with them. When they 
sat down to supper, He took a loaf and gave thanks, 
and broke it just in His old way. Then they saw 
it was Jesus. The next moment He vanished out 
of their sight. And they said to one another, " Was 
not our heart burning within us while He was talk- 
ing with us on the way ? " 

Then they got up at once and hurried back to 
Jerusalem to tell the other disciples. But when 
they met the eleven apostles they found that they 
too knew that Jesus had been raised up from the 
dead, for the first thing they said was, " The Lord 
has been raised up indeed ! and He has appeared to 



EMMAUS 325 

Simon ! " Here was wonderful news each had to 
tell. They talked it over eagerly. While they 
were doing so, Jesus himself appeared in their midst. 
They were terrified, dreadfully frightened ; for they 
thought they had seen a ghost. But Jesus showed 
them His hands and His feet, and made them quite 
sure that it really was Himself, their dear Lord and 
Friend come back from the dead. After this He 
appeared to His people again and again, sometimes 
at Jerusalem, sometimes in Galilee ; till, one day 
He led them out to the Mount of Olives, towards 
Bethany, and lifted up His hands and blessed them. 
And while He was blessing them He was carried 
up into heaven, and a cloud hid Him from their 
sight. 



VI 

Some Stories from John 

CHAPTER I 

THE STORY OF THE EARLY DISCIPLES 

All that I have told you so far about Jesus 
Christ is taken from the first three Gospels — Mat- 
thew, Mark, and Luke. We take what they say 
together because they go over much the same story. 
These Gospels were written earlier than the Gospel 
of John. There are many more things in them than 
there has been room to set down in this book. And 
a great many things happened in the life of Jesus 
that are not even to be found in Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke. 

John the apostle spent the last years of his life at 
Ephesus in Asia Minor. At a time of cruel persecu- 
tion he was sent to the island of Patmos, and there, 
perhaps, he wrote that strange book called " The 
Revelation," which is placed at the end of our Bible, 
and which tells of the war between good and evil, 
and the great victory of Christ at last. Years after 
this, when he was a very old man, and most of the 
other people who had seen Jesus had died, John put 

326 



THE STORY OF THE EARLY DISCIPLES 32? 

together his memories of those wonderful days of 
his youth when he used to go about with Jesus as 
one of His disciples. These memories stood out in 
his memory sharp and clear, as the scenes of youth 
do stand out even in old age. But John had 
thought much about them and often talked of them, 
and when he came to set them down in a book he 
did it in his own way. 

John commences by telling how the Word was in 
the beginning face to face with God and was God ; 
how all things were made by Him, how He was the 
light of men, and how He became a man and lived 
among men. So by the " Word " he meant that 
which is God in Jesus, what we call the Divine 
nature of Jesus. 

Then John goes on to tell us about John the Baptist 
and the early disciples of Jesus. It was in the time 
before Jesus had begun His public work, but after 
He had been baptized. John was standing with 
two of his disciples when he saw Jesus coming 
along. The Baptist gazed at Him with awe and 
admiration, and exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of 
God ! " At another time he said, " Behold the Lamb 
of God that taketh away the sin of the world." 

Then the two disciples went after Jesus. Seeing 
them following, He turned and asked them what 
they wanted. 

" Rabbi," they said, " whore are you staying ? " 

"Come," He answered, "and you shall see." So 
they went home with Him. This was about four 



328 SOME STORIES FROM JOHN 

o'clock in the afternoon. One of these two was 
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He went and 
fetched his brother Peter. 

The next day Jesus found Philip and called 
him ; Philip was from Bethsaida, where Andrew 
and Peter lived, so most likely they were friends. 
Philip fetched his friend Nathaniel. But Nathaniel 
was slow to believe what Philip said about Jesus; 
" Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " he 
asked. Philip made a very wise answer — " Come 
and see." 

When Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to Him He 
said, "See an Israelite indeed in whom there is no 
deceit." 

" How do you know me ? " said Nathaniel. 

" Before Philip called you. When you were 
under the fig tree I saw you." 

That was enough. Nathaniel's doubts vanished. 
With joy he cried, " Rabbi, Thou art the Son of 
God; Thou art the King of Israel." 

Then John goes on to tell how Jesus came to 
work His first wonder. He was at a wedding feast 
in Cana of Galilee with His disciples. They ran 
short of wine, and His mother came to Him about 
it. Jesus told the servants to fill some water-pots 
with water. Then He said, " Draw out now and 
give to the steward." When they poured it out 
they found it was wine. 

It is John, too, who gives us the story of Nico- 
demus. This man was a Jew of very high rank, 



THE STORY OF THE EARLY DISCIPLES 329 

and he came to Jesus by night because he did not 
want to be seen. 

"Rabbi," he said, "we know you are a teacher 
sent from God, for no man can do these signs that 
you do, unless God is with him." 

Jesus answered in a very different way from what 
Nicodemus was expecting — 

" Most certainly, I tell you, unless a man is born 
from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." 

" How can a man be born when he is old? " 

" Most certainly, I tell you, unless a man is born 
by water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
Kingdom of God. Do not be surprised that I told 
you you must be born from above. The wind 
blows as it will. You hear its voice. But you 
cannot tell where it comes from or where it is 
going. So is every one that is born by the Spirit." 



CHAPTER II 

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL 

It happened once when Jesus was passing through 
Samaria, that He came to a small town called Sychar, 
at the entrance to the valley between two mountains, 
called Ebal and Gerizim. A little way from the 
town there was a well ; this well is to be seen in 
the present day, for it is still there. 

When Jesus reached the well it was twelve 
o'clock in the day, a very hot time in Palestine. 
As He was tired and thirsty, He sat down by the 
well while His disciples went into the town to buy 
some food. But He could not get any water to 
drink, because He had no means of fetching it up 
from the deep well. 

Presently a woman of Samaria came down to 
draw water. Jesus asked her to give Him some to 
drink. 

She was very much surprised at this, because 
Jews did not like to take favours from Samaritans, 
as they despised them. 

" How is it," she said, " that you, a Jew, ask for 
drink from me, a Samaritan woman ? " 

Jesus did not answer her question, but instead 
of doing so, He surprised her still more by saying, 
"If only you knew God's gift, and who it is that 

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THE WOMAN AT THE WELL 333 

asks you, you would ask Him, and He would give 
you living water." 

" Sir," she answered, " you have nothing to draw 
with, and the well is deep. How then will you get 
your living water ? Are you greater than our father 
Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it him- 
self with his sons and his cattle? " 

" Every one who drinks of this water," said 
Jesus, " shall thirst again ; but whoever drinks of 
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, 
for the water that I shall give him shall be in him 
a well of water springing up to eternal life." 

" Sir," she answered, " give me this water that 
I may not thirst, nor come all the way here to 
draw from the well." 

" Go, call your husband." 

" I have no husband," she answered. 

" You said rightly that you have no husband, for 
you have had five husbands, and he whom you now 
have is not your husband." 

How startled she must have been to find a stranger 
who knew the miserable story of her life ! 

" Sir," she said, " I see you are a prophet ! " Then 
she thought she would get this strange prophet to 
answer a question that had often puzzled her. So 
she said, " Our fathers worshipped in this mountain " 
— pointing to Mount Gerizim, the mountain on the 
south side of the valley, where the Samaritans had 
built a temple, and where they have sacrificed their 
Paschal lamb, even till our own time — "but you 



334 SOME STORIES FROM JOHN 

say that the place where men ought to worship is in 
Jerusalem." 

"Woman," said Jesus, "believe Me, the time has 
come to worship the Father neither in this mountain 
nor at Jerusalem. God is Spirit, and they that wor- 
ship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." 

This very much puzzled her, and all she could 
answer was, " I know that Messiah is coming ; when 
He is come He will tell us all things." 

"I, who am speaking to you," said Jesus, "am 
He." 

Then the woman left her water-pot, and ran back 
to the town, saying, " Come, see a man who told me 
all that ever I did ; can this be the Christ ? " 

In this way she brought a number of her neigh- 
bours out to the well ; and Jesus preached to them, 
and won some of them to believe in Him. 



CHAPTER III 

THE MAN WHO WAS BOKN BLIND 

When Jesus was up at Jerusalem for one of the 
feasts He passed a man who had been blind from his 
birth. 

"Rabbi," said His disciples, "who did sin, this 
man or his parents, that he was born blind ? " 

The Jews were taught to believe that suffering 
was the punishment of sin : so, if a man was born 
with something wrong about him, it was hard to see 
when the sin had been committed. Had he lived in 
another life before he was born to the present life ? 
or was he suffering for his parents' sins ? 

Jesus said it was neither. The man was there as 
he was that the works of God might be done. Then 
He spat in the dust and made clay, and put it to the 
man's eyes, saying, " Go and wash in the pool of 
Siloam." He went and washed, and when he came 
back he could see. 

Now he was a well-known beggar, and some of 
those people who had often seen him said, " Is not 
this the man who used to sit and beg ? " 

Some said, "It is he"; others said, "No, but he 
is like him." The man himself put them right by 
saying, " I am he." 

335 



336 SOME STORIES FROM JOHN 

" How, then, were your eyes opened? " they asked. 

He told them what Jesus had done, and they took 
him to the Pharisees, who were much put about 
because the cure had taken place on the Sabbath 
day. So they questioned the man very closely ; 
next they sent for his parents, who said, " We know 
that this is our son, and that he was born blind ; but 
we do not know how it is that he sees now, or who 
opened his eyes. He is of age; ask him." 

Then the Pharisees called him up again, and said, 
" Give God the glory ; we know that this man is a 
sinner." 

He answered, " Whether he be a sinner I do not 
know ; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, 
now I see." 

" What did He do to you ? How did He open 
your eyes ? " 

" I told you before ; but you would not hear me. 
Will you hear me now? Do you wish to become 
His disciples ? " 

They could make nothing of him, and they were 
in a great rage. 

But he was a brave man, and he would not be 
quieted. " Why," he went on, " here is a marvel ; 
you do not know where He comes from, and yet He 
opened my eyes. If this Man had not come from 
God He could do nothing." 

At this they lost their temper, and answered, 
44 You were altogether born in sin, and do you teach 
us ? " And they turned him out. 




The Pool of Siloam 



THE MAK WHO WAS BOKK BLIND 339 

Jesus heard they had turned him out, and when 
He met him He asked him if he believed on the Son 
of God. The man did not understand at first, but 
when Jesus had explained to him he cried, " Lord, I 
believe," and bowed down on the ground before 
Jesus. 



CHAPTER IV 

LAZARUS 

Not many weeks before Jesus was given up to 
His enemies, and while He was living in quiet with 
His disciples in the part called Perea, down in the 
south on the further side of the River Jordan, 
Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha of 
Bethany, was taken dangerously ill. The sisters 
sent word to Jesus, with the message, "Lord, he 
whom Thou lovest is sick." Jesus loved the family 
at Bethany, and yet He stayed where He was for 
two days after He had received this message. For 
He had work to do that must not be given up, 
though what it was we do not know. 

At the end of two days He said, " Our friend 
Lazarus has fallen asleep ; but I am going to wake 
Him from sleep." The disciples knew that it was 
very dangerous for Jesus to go near Jerusalem at 
that time, but one of them named Thomas said, 
" Let us go, too, that we may die with Him." 

When Jesus came to Bethany He found that 
Lazarus had already been in the grave four days. 
As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she 
went out to meet Him ; Mary did not yet know He 
was so near. The two sisters had been dreadfully 
disappointed that Jesus had not come before. Now, 

340 



LAZAKUS 341 

it seemed, He was too late. It was very trying for 
them. Jesus was never flustered and in a hurry, 
as Martha often was ; but then He was never really 
too late. Still Martha could not understand that at 
the time, and directly she saw Jesus she burst out 
with the complaint, " Lord, if only you had been 
here, my brother would not have died." 

" Your brother shall rise again," said Jesus. 

" Yes ; I know he shall rise again at the resurrec- 
tion at the last day." ' She did not find much com- 
fort in that thought. It was a far-off thought, 
something she always believed because she had been 
taught it from a child ; but it did not mean much to 
her. She did not see that it had anything to do 
with Jesus. So He said to her, "I am the Resur- 
rection and the Life ; he who trusts in Me, though 
he die, he shall yet live ; and whoever lives trusting 
in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" 

Then it was as though a sunbeam broke out of 
the clouds, and she looked up through her tears and 
said, " Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you 
are the Christ, the Son of God." 

After this she went back and called her sister, 
secretly, whispering to her, " The Teacher is here, 
and He is asking for you." 

Mary got up quickly and went out to Him and 
flung herself on the ground at His feet, repeating 
the very same words that Martha had used, " Lord, 
if only you had been here my brother would not 
have died." 



342 SOME STORIES FROM JOHN 

They must often have been saying this to one 
another. 

When Jesus saw her crying He was dreadfully 
distressed. " Where have you laid him ? " He 
asked. And as they led Him towards the tomb 
He wept. When the Jews saw this they said, " See 
how He loved him ! " Jesus, sighing and groaning, 
came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay 
against ito 

"Take away the stone," He said. Martha did 
not like them to have that done, because Lazarus 
had been buried four days ; so Jesus said to her, 
" Did I not tell you that if you believed you would 
see the glory of God ? " 

Then they rolled away the stone. When Jesus 
had lifted up His eyes and given thanks to His 
Father for having heard His prayer, He called with 
a loud voice, " Lazarus, come forth ! " 

And the dead man came out of the cave alive 
again, bound up in white linen from head to foot, 
with his face wrapped in a napkin. 

''Loose him," said Jesus, "and let him go." 

So Lazarus was brought back from the dead ; 
and he went home with his sisters, to their great 
joy and wonder. 

But the enemies of Jesus made this a reason for 
seeking to destroy Lazarus, as well as Jesus. 



CHAPTER V 

SOME MEMORIES OF THE TRIAL AND DEATH OF 
JESUS 

John gives us a very full account of the last 
days of Jesus on earth. He knew some of the high 
priest's people, and he was allowed to go in with 
Jesus to the trial at the high priest's house, and 
watch what went on. He tells us, too, about the 
trial before Pontius Pilate — how Pilate questioned 
Jesus, and how Jesus perplexed him with strange 
answers. We learn that when the soldiers had been 
mocking Jesus, Pilate brought Him out to the Jews, 
with the purple cloak and the crown of thorns on 
His head, and said, " Behold the Man." 

John tells us that when Jesus was on the cross 
He saw His mother and "the disciple whom He 
loved" — that must be meant for John himself — 
standing by. Looking at His mother, He said, 
" Woman, see your son," and then looking to John, 
He said, "See your mother." They both under- 
stood that the dying Jesus was trusting Mary to 
the care of His friend, and from that time John 
took her to his own home. 

After this, we learn, Jesus said, " I thirst," and 
then it was that somebody gave Him the sour wine 

343 



344 SOME STORIES FROM JOHN 

on a sponge. Directly He had received it He said, 
" It is finished," and His Spirit passed away. 

We learn, too, from John, that the soldiers broke 
the legs of the two robbers, to kill them before the 
Sabbath. They did not do so to Jesus, because He 
was dead already. It was very unusual for a person 
to die so quickly on the cross. The sufferers some- 
times lingered in agony for several days. To make 
sure that Jesus was dead, a soldier pierced His side, 
and there came out blood and water. 

One more recollection of this dreadful day. John 
tells us that Nicodemus brought some spices to the 
burial of Jesus in Joseph's tomb, which was in a 
garden. This shows that he had secretly believed 
in Jesus. 



CHAPTER VI 

MARY AT THE TOMB, AND THOMAS WHO DOUBTED 

John has his memories, too, of the risen Christ. 
It is he who tells us about Mary Magdalene at the 
tomb. She came with the other women very early 
on the Sunday morning on which Jesus had risen 
from the dead. But none of them knew of this 
glad wonder. When she found the tomb empty 
she ran and told Peter, and he came, and John with 
him ; and they found the linen clothes lying rolled 
up in the empty tomb. 

Mary was standing by, crying. She stooped down 
and looked in. There she saw two angels in white, 
sitting one at the head and the other at the feet, 
where the body of Jesus had been. They asked her 
why she was crying, and she said, " Because they 
have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where 
they have laid Him." 

Then she turned and saw some one standing by 
her, and He said to her, " Woman, why are you cry- 
ing ? Whom are you looking for ? " 

She thought it was the gardener, and she an- 
swered, " Sir, if you have taken Him from here, tell 
me where you have laid Him, and I will come and 
bring Him away." 

345 



346 SOME STORIES FROM JOHN 

" Mary ! " He said, for it was Jesus. 

She turned with a start. " Rabboni ! (Master !) " 
she cried, and she would have flung herself 
upon Him. But He drew back, saying, " Do not 
touch Me ; for I am not yet ascended to My 
Father and your Father, and My God and your 
God." 

That same evening, when the disciples were in a 
room with the door shut, Jesus came and stood in 
the midst of them, and said, "Peace be with you," 
and showed them His hands and His feet. They 
were glad indeed when they saw it really was their 
dear Lord come back to them from the grave. He 
breathed on them, giving them the Holy Spirit and 
the right to say what sort of people's sins could be 
forgiven, and what sort of people's sins were still to 
stand against them. 1 

Now Thomas was not present, and when he heard 
of it he said, " Unless I shall see in His hands the 
print of the nails, and put my finger into them, and 
my hand into His side, I will not believe." 

A week later the disciples were met together, and 
this time Thomas was with them. Jesus came again 
and stood in the midst of them, though the doors 
were shut, and said, "Peace be with you." Then, 
turning to Thomas, He added, " Reach out your 
finger and see My hands ; and reach your hand and 

1 John was one of the Apostles to whom Jesus gave this right, 
and we may see how he used it in his own writings, as for example 
in 1 John i. 8-10. 



MARY AT THE TOMB 347 

put it into My side ; and be not without faith, but 

be believing." 

Thomas cried, " My Lord and my God ! " 

" Because you have seen Me," said Jesus, " you 

have believed. Happy are they that have not seen 

and yet have believed." 






CHAPTER VII 

PETER BY THE SEA 

The last of John's recollections takes us away to 
the Sea of Galilee ; he does not say when. Peter 
was there with some other of the disciples of Jesus. 

" I am going fishing," he said. 

The others agreed to go with him. But they 
took nothing all night. 

As they came in at daybreak Jesus was standing 
on the beach ; but they did not know it was He. 
Calling to them over the water, He said, " Children, 
have you anything to eat ? " 

" No," they answered. 

44 Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and 
you will find some fish." 

They did so, and they were not able to draw the 
net to the shore for the great number of fishes that 
were in it. 

The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, " It 
is the Lord ! " At this Peter girded his coat about 
him and leaped into the sea, wading through the 
water to the shore. The others came in the little 
boat, dragging the net full of fishes. There they 
saw a fire of charcoal, and a fish broiling on it ; 
there was some bread, too. Jesus said, " Bring some 
of the fish you have just caught." 

348 



PETER BY THE SEA 349 

So Peter went aboard and drew the net to land, 
and they found in it a hundred and fifty-three fishes. 

"Come," said Jesus, "and have your breakfast." 
And none of the disciples dared to ask who He was; 
but they were sure now that it was the Lord. 

After breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, 
son of John, do you love Me more than these ? " 

"Yes, Lord," he answered. "You know that I 
love You dearly." 

" Feed My lambs," said Jesus. 

He asked him a second time, " Simon, son of John, 
do you love Me ? " 

"Yes, Lord," he answered again. "You know 
that I love You dearly." 

" Care for My sheep." 

Once more He asked him, " Simon, son of John, 
do you love Me dearly ? " 

Peter was grieved because He had asked him the 
question three times, and he said, " Lord, You know 
all things. You know that I love You dearly." 

" Feed my sheep," said Jesus. Then He went on 
to tell Peter that, though he had girded himself 
when he was young, when he was old he would have 
to stretch out his hands, and another would gird 
him, and carry him where he did not wish to go. 
John wrote about this after Peter was dead ; and by 
that time he was able to see what Jesus meant. It 
was a warning of the death Peter was to die, for 
Peter followed his Master faithfully to the last, and 
was martyred ; it is said he was crucified. 



VII 

The Disciples at Jerusalem 



chapter I 

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 

It was the harvest festival, which the Jews called 
the feast of the Pentecost, a few weeks after the 
resurrection of Jesus. A hundred and twenty of 
the disciples of Jesus were in Jerusalem, and were 
met together in one room. Suddenly they heard a 
sound like a great rushing wind, then they saw what 
looked like tongues of fire, which settled on each of 
the hundred and twenty. They were all filled with 
the Holy Spirit. A great excitement seized them, 
and they broke out into the praises of God with 
strange wild cries. Indeed, so strange were these 
cries that when the Jews heard the sound they said 
those people must be drunk. We never hear any- 
thing of the kind now, but the same thing happened 
at Corinth years later, and Paul had a great deal to 
say about it. He did not think it anything to be 
proud of, or boast about. Yet it was a sign that 
the hearts of the disciples were so greatly stirred by 
the Spirit of God that they could not restrain them- 

350 



THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 351 

selves ; they could not help bursting out into cries 
of joy. 

But the gift of the Spirit was meant for some- 
thing better than this. It was given to help the 
disciples preach the good news of Christ and His 
kingdom. They began at once to preach to the 
hosts of Jews, who had come up to the feast from all 
parts of the Roman Empire. 

The people were amazed and perplexed. They 
could not make out what it all meant. Some said, 
" They are drunk with new wine." 

Peter stood up with the rest of the Apostles, and 
declared that for all their excitement they were not 
drunk. It was not at all likely they would be, see- 
ing it was only nine o'clock in the morning. He 
said this was the coming about of what the ancient 
prophet Joel had spoken of — 

And it shall be in the last days, saith God, 
I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh ; 
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 
And your young men shall see visions, 
And your old men shall dream dreams. 

Peter went on to tell how this coming of the 
Spirit of God — no longer only on prophets, but on 
all kinds of people, young and old — was brought 
about by Jesus Christ. He charged the Jews with 
crucifying Jesus ; but he declared that God had 
raised Him from the dead, and that he and his 
friends were witnesses of that great wonder. 



352 THE DISCIPLES AT JERUSALEM 

When they heard this they were pricked to the 
heart, and cried, " Brothers, what shall we do ? " 

Peter told them to turn from evil, and become 
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the for- 
giveness of their sins. Those who accepted what 
Peter said were baptized, and a host of new disciples 
was added to the number of the followers of Jesus. 



CHAPTER II 

THE HAPPY LIFE OF THE BROTHERS 

These disciples of Jesus looked upon one another 
as brothers and sisters. Those who had property 
sold it and gave to those who were needy. Every 
day they used to meet in one another's houses and 
dine together in a happy simplicity of heart, full of 
kindness, full of joy, full of praise. 

They used to go up to the Temple to pray, for 
they were still Jews. It happened once that when 
Peter and John were going into the Temple at 
three o'clock in the afternoon, one of the hours of 
prayer, there was a man who had been born lame 
lying at the gate called Beautiful. Perhaps this 
was the " Susa Gate," one made of massive 
Corinthian brass, so heavy that it is said it took 
twenty men to move it. So here were splendour of 
man's work and man's helpless misery side by side. 

Seeing Peter and John, the lame man began to 
beg. Peter, fixing his eyes on him, said, " Look on 
us." The fishermen did not look as though they 
had much to give away. But the poor are kind to 
the poor, and seafaring people are often very free 
with their money. So the beggar still expected 
something. 

2 a 353 



354 THE DISCIPLES AT JERUSALEM 

But Peter said, " Silver and gold I have none ; 
but what I have I will give you. In the name of 
Jesus Christ of Nazareth — walk ! " At the same 
time he took him by the right hand and raised 
him up ; and immediately he got strength in his 
feet and ankle bones. He leaped up ; he stood a 
moment. Then he began to walk, and he went 
with them into the Temple, walking and leaping 
and praising God. 

The people were astonished, for they had often 
seen the lame man begging at the Temple gate; 
and they ran together in a great crowd. Then 
Peter preached to them about Jesus Christ, through 
whose power the wonder had been done. In this 
way a great many more disciples were added to 
them. But the priests and the principal people at 
the Temple were vexed at the preaching of Jesus, 
whom they had crucified. They had Peter arrested 
and brought before Caiaphas and the council — 
before the very people who were examining Jesus 
when Peter denied his Master. But Peter was 
another man now. A great change had come over 
him since Jesus had risen from the dead and he had 
received the Spirit of God. Besides, he had learnt 
well the lesson of his fall. So when the council 
told him and John to speak no more in the name 
of Jesus, Peter answered boldly, " Whether it be 
right in the sight of God to listen to you rather 
than to God you must judge. But we cannot but 
speak the things we have seen and heard." 






THE HAPPY LIFE OE THE BROTHERS 355 

The Apostles were so great favourites with the 
people at this time that the council did not like to 
hurt them ; so they only threatened them, and let 
them go. 

They would not leave off preaching about Jesus 
and the resurrection for any threats. This very 
much annoyed that part of the ruling Jews who 
were called Sadducees, because they taught that 
there was no resurrection. But a wise man named 
Gamaliel, of the Pharisees — the opposite party — 
advised them to let the Apostles alone. He said 
if the thing was only from men it would come to 
nothing ; but if it was from God they could not over- 
throw it, and they would be found fighting against 
God. This good advice was followed, and the 
Apostles were let alone for a time. 



CHAPTER III 

STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR 

There were a great many poor disciples at Jeru- 
salem who had to be supported out of the moneys 
that were given by their more well-to-do compan- 
ions. The Greek-speaking Jews who had come 
from foreign parts complained that their widows 
did not get a fair share of the gifts. This was a 
tiresome business, and it hindered the Apostles in 
preaching and teaching. So they called the whole 
body of the disciples together, and got them to 
choose seven men to look after it. 

One of these was Stephen. He was a very gifted 
man, and, besides doing his special duty of seeing 
that the poor were all properly provided for, he 
taught and worked wonders. Some of the Jews 
from North Africa and Asia Minor, who were in 
Jerusalem at the time, argued with him ; but he 
was too clever for them, and what he had to say was 
not to be answered. They were in a great rage at 
being beaten in arguing, and they got men to swear 
before the council that he was guilty of blasphemy. 
These men accused him of speaking against the 
Temple and the law. This was much the same 
charge as that which had been brought against 
Jesus. 

356 



STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR 357 

All the council turned to Stephen to see how he 
would take the accusation. His face was so bright 
and beautiful with the joy of God that it looked to 
them like the face of an angel. 

The high priest asked him, " Are these things 
so?" 

Stephen made a most eloquent speech in reply. 
He went back over the history of his people, show- 
ing how all along they had disobeyed the Spirit of 
God. Then he boldly turned on them, calling them 
a stiff-necked people. " Which of the prophets did 
not your fathers persecute ? " he said. " They killed 
those who told them beforehand about the coming 
of the Righteous One, of whom you have now be- 
come betrayers and murderers." 

When they heard him say these things they were 
cut to the heart, and gnashed their teeth against 
him in rage. But Stephen was full of the Spirit of 
God, and, looking up to heaven with a fixed gaze, he 
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the 
right hand of God ; and he said, " I see the heavens 
opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right 
hand of God ! " 

This was blasphemy to them. They stopped their 
ears ; they tried to shout him down ; they all rose 
up together and rushed at him, and, seizing him, 
dragged him out of the city. The witnesses, whose 
duty it was, according to an old Jewish custom, to 
act as executioners and stone a man condemned to 
death, laid their coats at the feet of a young man 



358 THE DISCIPLES AT JERUSALEM 

named Saul. Stephen had not been condemned. It 
was a mere act of violence, the council behaving like 
a mob. Still, he was stoned. As they were fling- 
ing the stones at him he prayed, " Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spirit." He was beaten down to the 
ground ; but on his knees he cried with a loud 
voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." 
These were his last words. Cruel as was the mur- 
der of him, his dying seemed to his friends just like 
falling asleep, he was so calm, and brave, and 
peaceful. 

After this there was a great persecution. Saul 
took a leading part in it, breaking into houses, and 
leading men and women off to prison. The perse- 
cution scattered the family life at Jerusalem. But 
wherever the disciples went they carried the good 
news of Jesus Christ ; and so the persecution really 
was the means of spreading missionary work further 
afield. 



CHAPTER IV 

PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN 

. In the course of these wanderings of the scattered 
disciples after the persecution that followed the 
murder of Stephen, Philip, another of the seven men 
who had been appointed to look after the poor, was 
led to go down from Jerusalem towards a place 
called Gaza, away in the south country by a lonely 
road through the desert. Now it happened that an 
Ethiopian of high rank under Candace, the queen of 
the Ethiopians, who had charge of her treasures, had 
come all the way up from the south of Arabia, and 
perhaps even further, to worship God in the Temple 
of Jerusalem. He must have heard of the God of 
the Jews in his far-off country, perhaps from travel- 
ling merchants, and his heart was moved to make 
this long journey to the place where that God was 
worshipped. He was very anxious to know more. 
So it would seem, when he was in Jerusalem, he 
bought the Jews' Bible — our Old Testament, or 
perhaps only part of it, the Book of Isaiah, and he 
was so eager to read his book that he could not wait 
till he got home. He had it out in his carriage as 
he drove along the quiet road. 

When he overtook Philip, who was walking on 
the same road, the Spirit of God whispered to 
Philip to go up to him. So Philip ran after the 

359 



360 THE DISCIPLES AT JERUSALEM 

carriage, and as he came near he heard the Ethio- 
pian reading aloud to himself. 

Philip asked him if he understood what he was 
reading. 

" How can I," he answered, " unless somebody 
explain it to me?" And he begged Philip to come 
up and sit with him. Now the part of the Bible 
he was reading was this — 

" He was led as a sheep to the slaughter ; 
And as a lamb before his shearer is dumb, 
So he opened not his mouth." 

These words and those that follow were much 
perplexing him. 

" Pray tell me," he said, " of whom is the prophet 
speaking ? Of himself, or of some other person ? " 

Then Philip began to use this scripture to tell 
him about Jesus Christ. As they went on their 
way they came to some water, and the Ethiopian 
said, " See, here is water. What is to hinder me 
being baptized?" He told the coachman to stop 
the carriage, and they both got out and went down 
to the water, and Philip baptized the Ethiopian. 
After this the Spirit of God led Philip to leave the 
Ethiopian, and he went first to a city called Azotus, 
and, passing through it, he preached the good news 
to all the cities on the way till he came to Ceesarea, 
on the coast of the Mediterranean, the headquarters 
of the Roman government in Palestine, a very im- 
portant place. 



PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN 361 

As far as we know, the Ethiopian was the first 
man not born a Jew who was baptized as a disciple 
of Jesns Christ. But very likely he had joined 
himself to the Jewish religion when he was at 
Jerusalem, if not before. Soon after this some 
people who had had nothing to do with the Jew- 
ish religion became disciples of Christ. 

It was brought about in this way. Some of 
those who were scattered abroad because of the 
persecution at the time of Stephen's death went 
as far as Cyprus, and some of the followers of 
Christ from that island and from Cyrene on the 
north coast of Africa, all of them Jews, went to 
Antioch, the capital of Syria, and there they 
preached to the Greeks and Syrians. A number 
of people accepted their message, and so there was 
a body of Gentile followers of Christ in that city. 
This was the first Gentile church. It became a 
great missionary church for the heathen in Asia 
and Europe. The name " Christian " was first used 
at Antioch for these followers of Christ. 



CHAPTER V 

PETER ON HIS TRAVELS 

In course of time the persecution died out. One 
reason for this was that the most fierce of the 
persecutors suddenly turned round and became 
himself a Christian. The story of this wonderful 
change will be told in the next chapter. The 
Christians in Judsea and Galilee and Samaria had 
peace now, and Peter went on his travels, visiting 
them in various places. 

Then it was, as we read, that he came across a 
man, named iEneas, who was paralyzed, and who 
had kept his bed for eight years. 

Peter said to him, "iEneas, Jesus Christ is heal- 
ing you. Get up and make your bed/' He did 
so at once. 

A good many people at Lydda, and in other 
parts of that neighbourhood, came to believe in 
Jesus Christ. 

The story goes on to tell of a wonderful thing 
that happened at another place near by — at Joppa, 
on the Mediterranean, the port for Jerusalem. A 
good Christian woman, named Tabitha (or Dorcas 
in Greek), fell ill and died. They sent to Lydda 
to tell Peter ; and he came back with the mes- 
senger. When he went upstairs to the room where 
Dorcas had been laid, he found a number of poor 

362 



v &>' 




363 



PETER ON HIS TRAVELS 365 

women standing round her crying, and showing 
the clothes she had made for them. Peter put 
them all out, and kneeled down and prayed. Then 
turning to the body, he said, " Tabitha, arise ! " 
She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she 
sat up. He held out his hand to her, and raised 
her up ; and after this he called the people in, and 
showed them Dorcas alive again. 

Peter now went to lodge at the house of a man 
named Simon, a tanner at Joppa. There are tan- 
neries at this place — now called Jaffa — at the 
present day. The Jews avoided tanners, holding 
them to be unclean, because they had to touch 
the hides of dead animals. But Peter had learnt 
enough of the mind of his Master to stay in the 
house of one of these despised people. He was 
soon to learn more. 

Up the coast at Csesarea there was a centurion 
— that is, a Roman officer in charge of about a 
hundred soldiers — named Cornelius. Though he 
was a Roman he worshipped the true God, and 
was a very kind man to the poor, and was much 
given to prayer. But he wanted to know more 
about God. One night he had a vision of a mes- 
senger telling him to send to Joppa for Peter. So 
he sent two of his servants and the soldier who 
used to wait on him. This soldier, too, was a 
man who worshipped the true God. They set out 
early, and by twelve o'clock the next morning 
they were drawing near to Joppa. 



366 THE DISCIPLES AT JERUSALEM 

At this very time Peter had gone up to the house- 
top to pray. Feeling hungry, he asked the people 
of the house to get him some food. While they 
were preparing it he fell into a deep sleep, and had 
a vision. He thought he saw a sheet let down from 
heaven with all sorts of animals on it. And a voice 
came to him, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." 

" No, Lord," he answered, " for I have never eaten 
anything common or unclean." 

The voice came a second time, and said, " What 
God has cleansed call not thou common or unclean." 

While Peter was wondering what the vision could 
mean, the messengers came from Cornelius. Then 
he understood that he was not to call the heathen 
common or unclean, and he went and preached 
Christ to Cornelius and his people. 



VIII 

The Story of the Apostle Paul 

chapter I 

ON THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

In the days when Saul was still a persecutor, 
fiercer than ever, he went to the high-priest and 
got letters giving him a right to go to the syna- 
gogues at Damascus to see if he could find any 
people of the " Way," as it was called — that is, 
the Christian way of life — whether men or women, 
and bring them in chains to Jerusalem. 

As you come near to Damascus you travel over 
a desert country, and see before you the green gar- 
dens round the city and the white houses in their 
midst. When Saul was at this part of the road, 
suddenly he saw a bright light, and heard a voice 
which said, " Saul, Saul, why do you persecute 
Me?" 

" Who art thou, Lord ? " he asked. 

And the voice said, " I am Jesus of Nazareth, 
whom you are persecuting. But rise, stand on your 
feet, and go into the city ; there it will be told you 
what you are to do." 

When he got up he found he could not see. 
367 



368 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

They led him by the hand, and brought him into 
Damascus ; and he was three days without sight, 
refusing to eat or drink. 

Now there was in Damascus a Christian named 
Ananias. This man was led by the Spirit of Christ 
to seek out Saul. " Arise," the Lord said to him in 
a vision, " and go to the street called Straight, and 
ask in the house of Judas for one named Saul, a man 
of Tarsus, for he is praying." 

Ananias could not believe it. He had heard of 
the fierce persecutor, and he knew why Saul had 
come to Damascus. The Christians of that city 
were expecting him to hunt them out and carry 
them off. It was a time of great danger. And 
now Ananias is to go directly to the house where 
the terrible man is lodging. That must have seemed 
to him as bad as walking into a lion's den. But 
Ananias is told that Saul has been chosen by Christ 
to carry His name to the Gentiles and kings as well 
as to the people of Israel. 

Ananias conquered his fears and went forth on 
his errand. When he had found Saul he laid his 
hands on him, and said, " Brother Saul, the Lord 
Jesus who appeared to you on the road has sent 
me that you may have your sight and be filled with 
the Holy Spirit." And immediately it seemed as 
though the scales fell from his eyes, and he got 
his sight back. Then he rose up and was baptized ; 
and after that he began to take food and was 
strengthened. 




The Straight Street, Damascus 
2 b 369 



OK THE KOAD TO DAMASCUS 371 

This was a tremendous change for Saul. But he 
would not seek guidance from any man. He went 
away into Arabia, and there under the teachings of 
God in the desert he was prepared for his great 
life-work. Then he came back to Damascus and 
preached there. This enraged the Jews, and they 
would have killed him. So his friends let him down 
from the city wall in a basket at night, and he got 
safely away. 

He went to Jerusalem to see Peter. At first the 
Christians were afraid to receive him. But one of 
them, Barnabas, a very generous, large-hearted man, 
spoke for him. He saw James, too, the Lord's 
brother; but no other of the Apostles. The churches 
of Judea did not know him by sight. But they 
heard that he who had once persecuted them was 
now preaching the faith of Christ, and for this they 
glorified God. 






CHAPTER II 

THE FIRST MISSIONARY EXPEDITION 

There had been a great deal of missionary work 
before this; but it had been in the free acts of 
private persons. There was no missionary society, 
no means of sending out missionaries. The first 
missionary society was the Church at Antioch, that 
church of Greeks and Syrians which had grown out 
of the teaching of the men from Cyprus and Cyrene. 

Saul had gone back to his native town of Tarsus. 
But his friend Barnabas had fetched him to Antioch; 
and the two had been sent to Jerusalem with a cara- 
van, taking food for the Christians at Jerusalem in 
a time of famine. It was after this that the Spirit 
of God in the Church at Antioch told them to 
separate Barnabas and Saul for a special work. So 
the members of the Church prayed and fasted, and 
laid their hands on these two, solemnly ordaining 
them to be missionaries, and then sent them forth. 
They went on their journey as messengers from the 
Church; and they took with them John Mark, the 
man who afterwards wrote our second Gospel. 

First they went to the island of Cyprus; there 
were good reasons for beginning there. Christians 
from Cyprus had helped to found the Church at 
Antioch; it was Barnabas' old home; and it was 

372 



THE FIRST MISSIONARY EXPEDITION 878 

not far from Antioch. As they went through the 
island preaching the Gospel one result was that the 
chief man in Cyprus, the proconsul — that is, 
the Roman governor — was brought to believe in 
Jesus Christ. His name was Sergius Paulus. From 
this time Saul is called Paul, perhaps after the pro- 
consul. 

When they had travelled right through the island, 
preaching as they went, they took ship and sailed 
across to the mainland of Asia Minor, landing at a 
port called Perga. 

In one of his letters Paul tells us that about this 
time he had a strange vision, for he seemed to be 
caught up to heaven. Then to keep him humble 
God sent him something so painful that he could 
only compare it to a stake of wood driven into his 
flesh. We do not know what this was. Some people 
think it was a disease in his eyes, some that it might 
have been a fever that seized him down by the hot, 
unwholesome coast. If so, perhaps this was the 
reason why he turned to the bracing air of the 
mountains. There is a great wild range of moun- 
tains, covered with snow in winter, that runs along 
the south of Asia Minor. When Paul determined 
to climb these mountains Mark would not go with 
him. They had a dispute over it, and the end was 
that Mark left Paul and Barnabas, and went home 
to his mother at Jerusalem. 

The two climbed the mountains, and carried the 
good news of Jesus Christ to the towns on the other 



374 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

side. First they went to the Jews, but when most 
of their own countrymen turned against them they 
preached to the Gentiles. This made the Jews very 
angry and jealous. 

At a place called Lystra they met a cripple. Paul 
looked at him steadfastly, and saw that he had faith 
to be healed. So he said in a loud voice, " Stand 
upright on your feet." And the man leaped up, and 
was able to walk. 

This so astonished the heathen people that they 
said, " The gods have come down to us in the like- 
ness of men." Barnabas they called Zeus, the king 
of the gods, and Paul they took for Hermes, the 
messenger god, because he was the chief speaker. 
The priest of Zeus brought oxen, decorated with 
garlands of flowers to offer as sacrifices to the two 
missionaries. But when Barnabas and Paul under- 
stood what was going on they were horrified, and 
they leaped among the people, crying, " Sirs, why 
are you doing this ? We are men of the same nature 
as yourselves." But for all they said they could 
scarcely prevent the people from sacrificing to them. 

In this very town where they had been treated as 
gods, a party of Jews from the neighbouring towns 
turned the mob against Paul; and they stoned him, 
and then dragged him out of the city, supposing he 
was dead. As he lay in the dust, bruised and bleed- 
ing, those people whom he had won to believe in 
Christ, came and stood round him. To their sur- 
prise and joy he got up, and was able to walk back 



THE FLRST MISSIONARY EXPEDITION 375 

to the city. Paul and Barnabas travelled on to 
another town, and then came back over the same 
ground. 

In his missionary journeys Paul went through 
many dangers, among mountains and torrents, from 
robbers and enemies, in hunger and cold, on the sea 
and in the desert. He was shipwrecked three or 
four times. He passed a day and night in the sea. 
Once he was scourged. It was a life of toil and 
hardship. But Paul was a hero and a martyr for 
Christ's sake. 



CHAPTER III 

THE QUARREL WITH PETER 

When Paul and Barnabas had come back to 
Antioch they met the Church, and told them of 
their adventures and the way God had won disciples 
for Jesus Christ by means of their preaching, espe- 
cially among the Gentiles. 

But some of the strict Jewish Christians at Jerusa- 
lem did not think it right that Gentiles should be 
allowed to become Christians and join the churches 
without becoming like Jews and keeping the Jewish 
law. Some of these people came down to Antioch 
and told the Greek and Syrian Christians there that 
if they did not obey the law of the Jews they could 
not be saved. Paul did not believe anything of the 
kind, and he thought this interference unreasonable 
and unkind. So there was a great deal of question- 
ing and arguing between them. 

The Church at Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas 
and some other of their members to Jerusalem to 
ask the Church there for its advice on this question; 
a meeting of the Church at Jerusalem was held, and 
the matter was talked over. Peter stood up and 
advised his brethren not to put a heavy burden on 
the converts from heathenism. But the Church 
kept silent; they hardly dared to accept such an 

376 



THE QUARREL WITH PETER 377 

opinion, for they had all been taught from their 
childhood that people must keep the old law of 
Moses if they would be saved. Then Barnabas and 
Paul got up and told them what wonderful things 
God had been doing among the heathen by means of 
their missionary work. As soon as they had finished 
their story James, the brother of Jesus, who was at 
the head of the Church at Jerusalem, stood up and 
gave it as his opinion that they should not trouble 
these heathen converts to keep the law of the Jews. 
So a letter was sent back to the Church at Antioch 
with this answer. 

Paul had his own business in Jerusalem. He 
knew that Jesus had called him to be an Apostle ; 
but those Jewish Christians who were jealous of his 
offering the Gospel to the Gentiles would not allow 
that he was an Apostle. And now when he was led 
by the Spirit of God, by a revelation as he says, to 
bring this private matter of his own before the 
Apostles, he showed how truly Christ had owned him 
by blessing his work. The missionary story quite 
persuaded the chief leaders of the Church at Jerusa- 
lem, James and Peter and John ; and these men 
shook hands with Paul as a fellow-Apostle, agreeing 
that Paul and Barnabas should go to the heathen, 
while the older Apostles kept themselves to the Jews. 

After this Peter went down to Antioch, and there 
he sat at table with Gentile Christians as a brother 
among them, for he was naturally generous and 
warm-hearted. But when some of James' friends 



378 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

from Jerusalem, who thought it wrong to eat with 
Gentiles, came down to Antioch, he was ashamed of 
what he had been doing, and he left off mixing with 
the Gentiles in the same brotherly way. Paul 
thought that cowardly and deceitful, and he blamed 
him for it hotly to his face. It looked like the same 
weakness Peter had shown when he had denied His 
Master in the high-priest's palace. But perhaps he 
hardly knew what he ought to do in the matter, and 
was too much carried away with his feelings, first 
one way and then the other, and perhaps Paul was 
not quite kind in judging him so hardly. 






CHAPTER IV 



Some time after these things Paul took another 
companion, Silas, and visited the churches he had 
founded in Asia Minor. When they had passed 
through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, where 
these churches were, a strange, mysterious warning 
of the Spirit of God in their hearts checked them 
again and again, as they were going first this way 
and then that ; and they were shut up to going to 
the north-west, to a place called Troas, on the sea- 
coast, from which you can see Mount Athos in 
Macedonia. In the night Paul had a vision. He 
thought he saw a man from Macedonia standing 
before him, and pleading with him, saying, u Come 
over into Macedonia, and help us." He took this as 
a message from God, and started off at once with 
his companions, sailing straight across to the nearest 
port. Paul was now in Europe for the first time in 
his life. He felt it was the will of God that he 
should make the good news of Jesus Christ known 
to the people of Europe, and after this a great part 
of his work lay in our continent. 

The first town at which he stayed was Philippi. 
On the Sabbath day the missionaries went out by 
the water-gate along the bank of a river, till they 

379 



380 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

came to a place where some women used to meet 
for prayer ; and there they sat down and gave their 
message. Then God opened the heart of one of 
these women, Lydia, a seller of purple ; and she was 
baptized with her household. Lydia was the first 
of Paul's converts in Europe. 

One day, when Paul was walking to the place of 
prayer by the river-bank, he met a poor slave girl, 
who was supposed by the people to be haunted by 
a Python, that is, a spirit that gave her power to 
foretell the future. Paul told the spirit, in the 
name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her. Then 
the girl could not speak any more in the way that 
made the people think she was inspired. Her mas- 
ters saw that they could no longer hope to make 
a profit for themselves from her prophesying ; and 
they dragged Paul and Silas into the market-place 
before the magistrates, charging them with teaching 
customs that were unlawful for Romans. 

The magistrates ordered them to be beaten with 
rods. This was done with many strokes ; and then 
the magistrates ordered them to prison, commanding 
the jailer to keep them safely. So the jailer put 
them into the inner dungeon, and made their feet 
fast in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas 
were praying and singing hymns, when there was 
an earthquake which shook the walls, so that the 
doors flew open. The jailer had been asleep, and 
when the earthquake woke him up and he saw the 
doors open, he thought the prisoners must have 



381 

escaped. If he had allowed them to get out, he 
would have been punished with death. He was in 
despair, and he drew his sword to kill himself. But 
Paul shouted to him, " Do yourself no harm ; for 
we are all here." Then the man called for lights, 
and rushed in trembling with fear, and fell down at 
the feet of Paul and Silas, crying, " What must I do 
to be saved ? " He was terrified at the earthquake, 
and fearful as to what his masters would do to 
him. But Paul wanted to lead him to a better 
salvation than deliverance from these dangers. For 
this reason Paul said, " Trust to the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and you will be saved." Then he told him 
about Christ, and the man believed and was baptized 
with his household. The next day Paul and Silas 
were set free. 



CHAPTER V 

PAUL AT ATHENS 

Paul and his companions went on with their 
travels through Macedonia. At Thessalonica they 
won a number of converts among the weavers and 
seafaring people. But the Jews stirred up a dan- 
gerous riot, and Paul had to be hurried away, leav- 
ing his work unfinished. After going some distance 
he sent back his companions to see how the Chris- 
tians at Thessalonica were holding on in the midst 
of the dangers that surrounded them. 

In this way Paul came to be travelling alone for 
a time. He went down through Greece, and came 
to the famous city of Athens. Here, while he was 
waiting for his friends to join him, his spirit was 
stirred and pained to see how the city was given up 
to idolatry. There were statues of Hermes at every 
street corner, idols in private houses, magnificent 
temples for various gods, and a splendid gold and 
ivory statue of Athene, the goddess who was sup- 
posed to take charge of Athens, high above all on 
the rock of the citadel. 

Paul went to the synagogue of the Jews, and 
explained his message to them, and he went to the 
market-place every day, and talked to the people 
there — the very place where Socrates used to talk 

382 



PAUL AT ATHENS 383 

.to the Athenians in the old days long before. The 
people of Athens at this time were famous for their 
curiosity. One of their favourite amusements was 
to listen to the travelling lecturers, who picked up 
a living by going about from town to town with 
novel teaching. The only thing they wanted was 
that they should not be treated to stale teaching. 
Old tales they were tired of. Give us something 
new, they always said. But when these smart 
Athenians saw a little Jew dressed as a working- 
man come among them with an offer to teach them 
they began to laugh. They had not a bit of respect 
for him. " What can this sham wise man have to 
tell us ? " they said. But some who listened to him, 
and heard him preaching about Jesus and the resur- 
rection, said, " He seems to be talking about strange 
gods." 

Now there was a very ancient court of law, which 
met in the old days on the rock called the hill of 
Ares (the god of war) to try people who were said 
to be disrespectful to the gods. It was this court 
that had condemned Socrates to death. In the days 
of Paul it had lost its old power, and plenty of 
people were disrespectful to the gods of Athens at 
this time without anybody troubling himself. Still 
such foolish things were taught by some of the 
lecturers that the council had the right given it to 
forbid lectures they thought might be mischievous 
to young people. 

Paul was taken before this court. He made a 



384 



THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 



magnificent speech. He told his hearers that they 
seemed to be very religious. He had even seen an 
altar to an unknown God. He had come to tell 
them about this unknown God — the great God 







"' ' ' - 



^32^^ 



Altar from Athens, in British Museum 

who made the world, and in whom we live, and 
move, and have our being. Paul quoted one of 
their own poets, who had said, " We are also his 
offspring." 



PAUL AT ATHENS 385 

And then, standing as he was in Athens among 
the statues of the Greek gods, he showed how 
foolish it was to think God could be like gold, or 
silver, or stone, carved by men as a work of art. 
God, he said, was going to judge the world for its 
folly and wickedness by a Man whom he had raised 
from the dead. When Paul spoke of a rising 
from the dead the Athenians burst out laughing. 
That was too much for them ; they said they 
would hear the rest another time. And yet some 
believed in him, and among these was even one 
of the council, a man named Dionysius. 

2c 



CHAPTER VI 

THE RIOT AT EPHESUS 

From Athens Paul went to Corinth ; and there 
he was joined by his friends from Thessalonica. 
They told him his converts, the new Christians at 
Thessalonica, had been in much trouble ; so he 
wrote a comforting letter, and followed this with 
another. These were the first epistles of Paul, 
perhaps they were the first books of the New Tes- 
tament. Paul went to Corinth with a very simple 
message. All he had made up his mind to preach 
about was Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Yet 
he won a great many believers. These were mostly 
among the poor and uneducated people. People 
who thought themselves clever were too proud to 
take in his message. 

Paul was a year and a half at Corinth. Then 
the Jews had him taken up and brought before 
the proconsul Gallio, for teaching what was con- 
trary to the law. But Gallio was a cool and just 
man, and when it was only the law of the Jews 
that Paul was supposed to have broken, he thought 
it was all a quarrel about words, and he would 
have nothing to do with it. 

Paul stayed at Corinth a few days longer, and 
then sailed for Syria, going back to Antioch. 




Diana op the Ephesians 
387 



THE RIOT AT EPHESUS 389 

Then he set out again, and travelled till he reached 
Ephesus, where he taught in the lecture-room of 
a man named Tyrannus, and kept himself by work- 
ing at the trade of a tent-maker. His teaching 
had such a great effect that he won many believers. 
Here, too, he worked wonders, healing the sick 
in the name of Jesus Christ. Some people who 
had been living as witches and sorcerers brought 
their magical books and burnt them in a public 
place. It was calculated that these books alto- 
gether were worth a great deal of money, as much 
as we should now call <£1770. 

While Paul was at Ephesus, he received a letter 
from the church he had founded at Corinth, asking 
his advice about several questions that had troubled 
them. At the same time, some people who had 
come from Corinth told him of quarrels in the 
church, and dreadful faults among the members, 
of which they had said nothing in their letter. 
Paul wrote to them on these sad things first, and 
then he answered their questions. 

At the end of the two and a half years, he 
thought he would take a journey up to Macedonia, 
and round through Greece, to collect money for 
the poor Christians in Jerusalem. He was very 
anxious to bind all the Christians together in 
brotherly love, and especially to get the Jewish 
Christians in Jerusalem to feel kindly towards the 
Gentile Christians among the heathen. 

About this time a silversmith named Demetrius, 



390 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

who used to make silver images of the goddess 
Artemis, gathered the workmen of his craft to- 
gether, and showed them how the preaching of 
Paul was leading people away from the worship 
of the goddess. This would spoil their trade and 
ruin them. There was a great and splendid temple 
of Artemis at Ephesus. It was the pride of the 
city, one of the wonders of the world. So Deme- 
trius stirred up his fellow-workmen of the silver- 
smith trade to go shouting through the city, " Great 
is Artemis of the Ephesians." In this way they 
raised a serious riot, though most of the people had 
not the least idea of what it was all about. Still 
they seized some of Paul's companions, and dragged 
them into the theatre. Paul wanted to go in after 
them, but his friends held him back. For two hours 
the mob did nothing but shout, " Great is Artemis 
of the Ephesians.'' At length the town-clerk quieted 
them by threatening them with punishment from the 
Roman government, which would not stand a riot on 
any account. After this scene was over, Paul took 
leave of his friends and set off on his journey. 



CHAPTER VII 

PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JERUSALEM 

Paul made the first part of his journey as he had 
planned it. He went up from Ephesus and crossed 
over to Macedonia. There he wrote a second and 
more agreeable letter to his friends at Corinth, and 
he followed it himself a little later. About this 
time, or a little earlier, he heard bad news of the 
churches in Galatia. Most likely these were the 
churches he had founded when he went with Barna- 
bas on his first missionary journey. Some of the 
stiff Jewish Christians from Jerusalem had gone 
among the simple impetuous people and turned 
them against Paul. That was not the worst. They 
had persuaded the Galatians to keep the Jewish law. 
So they had made them think less of Christ and His 
cross. All this greatly grieved Paul. His heart 
was full of love for his people. As he travelled 
about he remembered them every day in his prayers. 
It was most disappointing for him to learn that 
any of them were growing cold and turning aside. 
So he wrote a very sharp letter to the Galatians. 
Then he wrote a letter to the Christians at Rome, 
whom he had never seen, because he was anxious 
that they should know the truth about forgiveness 
and the new life — that it came simply through faith 

391 



392 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

in Jesus Christ, quite apart from the law of the Jews, 
or anything that we can do for ourselves. 

Paul spent three months in Greece. He had 
collected the money for the poor Christians of 
Jerusalem, and he was ready to set sail for Syria, 
when he heard the Jews had a plot to kill him. 
For this reason he changed his course and went 
back again round by Macedonia, and then down to 
Miletus, near Ephesus, where the principal people 
from the church at Ephesus came out to bid him 
farewell. They were very sad ; and they wept, 
and fell on his neck and kissed him, for he had 
told them he would never see them again. If he 
went to Jerusalem it seemed almost certain that 
the Jews would kill him. Why then was he so 
determined to go ? Because he was anxious above 
all things to bring the two kinds of Christians 
together ; and he thought if he carried up the pres- 
ent from the churches among the heathen, and 
gave it himself to the Jerusalem Christians, he 
might be able to make them look upon these far- 
off Christians as brothers and sisters, even though 
they were not Jews. 

So he sailed on, and came to Caesarea. There the 
Christians tried to keep him from going to such a 
dangerous place as Jerusalem. One of them, a 
prophet named Agabus, bound his feet and hands 
with Paul's girdle, saying that the Holy Spirit had 
shown him that the Jews at Jerusalem would bind 
the man who owned that girdle. His travelling 



Paul's last visit to Jerusalem 393 

friends were alarmed for him, and even they joined 
in begging him not to go on. But Paul answered 
them, " What are you doing, weeping and breaking 
my heart ? for I am ready not only to be bound, 
but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the 
Lord Jesus." 

When they found he would not be persuaded, 
they left off urging him, and said, " The will of 
the Lord be done." 

So Paul went to Jerusalem, and the Christians 
there received him very kindly. But some Jews 
from Ephesus had followed him as spies, and they 
said to the Jerusalem Jews that Paul had taken a 
man of their own town, who was a Gentile, into 
the Temple and so defiled it. This raised a riot. 
The people laid hold of Paul, and dragged him out 
of the Temple. They would have killed him, but 
for the Roman soldiers who rescued him. When 
they were about to carry him off to the castle, he 
begged leave to speak to the people. The officer 
consented, and standing on the steps of the castle 
under the protection of the guard of Roman 
soldiers, Paul told the Jews the wonderful story of 
his conversion. But when he came to the part 
where he had the command to preach to the 
Gentiles, the Jews would not hear him any longer. 
This simply drove them wild. They behaved like 
madmen. They tore off their coats and flung dust 
in the air. The officer had Paul taken into the 
castle and tied up ready for being scourged to get 



394 



THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 



the truth out of him. But Paul asked if they were 
doing what was lawful to scourge a man who was 
a Roman. This surprised the captain. But Paul 
said he was a free-born Roman, because he was a 
citizen of the free town of Tarsus. They could 
not scourge him when they knew that. 



CHAPTER VIII 

IMPRISONMENT AT C^ESAREA 

The captain of the castle allowed Paul to appear 
before the Jewish council. But this led to such 
an uproar between the two parties in the council 
that Paul was in danger of being torn to pieces 
among them, and the captain had to rescue him 
again. 

The next day forty Jews bound themselves by 
an oath that they would not eat or drink anything 
till they had killed Paul. Paul's sister's son heard 
of it, and he went into the castle and told Paul, 
who called one of the centurions, and asked him 
to take the young man to the chief captain. The 
chief captain took him by the hand, and led him 
aside to question him privately. Then he called 
two of the centurions, and ordered them to get 
ready two hundred spearmen and seventy horsemen 
to take Paul under guard to Csesarea. 

Paul was sent to the governor Felix at Caesarea ; 
and the high-priest and some of the principal Jews 
came down and accused him there of being a dis- 
turber of the peace. Felix was interested in Paul's 
defence, and he ordered him to be kept in a comfort- 
able way, and his friends were to be allowed to visit 
him. Felix was married to a Jewess named Drusilla, 

395 



396 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

and they would often send for Paul to hear him. 
But when he reasoned about right living and God's 
judgment on wickedness, Felix was terrified and 
sent him away. He was hoping that Paul would 
give him money to be set free. So he kept Paul in 
prison for two years. At the end of the two years 
Felix was removed from his office, and another gov- 
ernor, Festus, appointed to it. The Jews asked 
Festus to send Paul to Jerusalem. But he was 
too shrewd to fall into their trap ; he said he would 
examine him himself at Caesarea. When he did so 
Paul claimed his right as a Roman citizen, and 
appealed to Caesar. He could not get justice from 
the governors of Syria. He would go to Rome and 
be tried by the Emperor. Festus was obliged to 
allow this. 

Before Paul was sent to Rome, Agrippa, the last 
of the Herods, and Bernice, his wife, came to Cses- 
area, and to please him, as he was a Jew, Festus had 
Paul brought out before him. So Agrippa came 
with great pomp, and his queen with him, and Paul 
made his defence before them. It was a noble de- 
fence. He became very excited in his eloquence, 
and Festus interrupted him, saying, " Paul, you are 
mad ; your great learning is driving you out of your 
mind." 

Paul answered, " I am not mad, most excellent 
Festus ; I am speaking true and sober words." 

Then he turned to Agrippa, saying, " The king 
knows of these things, before whom I speak freely, 



IMPRISONMENT AT C^ESAREA 397 

for this was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, 
do you believe in the prophets? I know you be- 
lieve." 

This was rather too personal for the king, and he 
answered scornfully, "So with a little persuading 
you would have me be a Christian ? " Paul answered, 
" I would to God that whether with little or with 
much, not you only, but all that hear me to-day, 
might become such as I am — except these bonds." 



CHAPTER IX 

THE SHIPWRECK 

Paul was taken with some other prisoners on 
board a coasting vessel, and the ship put out to sea. 
The prisoners were in charge of a centurion named 
Julius, who was very friendly to Paul. The first 
place they touched was Tyre, and here Paul was 
allowed to go ashore and visit his friends. Putting 
to sea again, they sailed under the lee of Cyprus, 
because the winds were contrary. Then they ran 
across to Myra, a town of Lycia, in the south of Asia 
Minor. As the ship was now going up the coast to 
the north, they left it here, and took one that had 
come into port from Alexandria, and was bound for 
Italy. 

They sailed slowly till they reached Crete. Com- 
ing under the lee of the island, they coasted along it 
with difficulty till they came to a place called " Fair 
Havens." They had been so delayed that it was 
now nearly the end of September, and they were 
likely to have nasty weather from the equinoctial 
gales. But as this place was not a convenient one 
to winter in, they weighed anchor under a soft south 
wind, and sailed along Crete close in shore, making 
for a better harbour. 

Before long a fierce wind beat down on them. 
The ship was caught in it, and there was nothing to 

398 




A Roman Centurion 
399 



THE SHIPWRECK 401 

do but run before the gale. While they were pass- 
ing under the shelter of a small island they were 
able to draw up the boat they had in tow, for it was 
in danger of being swept away ; and also to bind 
ropes round the hull of the ship to hold her together 
against the force of the waves. The danger was 
that they would be driven on the quicksands called 
" Syrtis," which were the terror of all sailors on 
these waters. They lowered the gear, and with only 
storm sails set they laboured heavily in the sea. 

The next day they began to throw the freight 
overboard. They were driven under dense clouds, 
never seeing the sun by day nor the stars by night ; 
so, as the ancients had no such thing as a compass, 
they lost all reckoning and gave up any hope of 
being saved. 

At times like this it becomes clear that those who 
know and trust God are much better off than people 
who live without God. Paul was only a prisoner ; 
but he was able to put heart into the frightened pas- 
sengers and crew. He was sure that God would 
protect them. 

They had been drifting in this dangerous way for 
a fortnight, and were now being driven to and fro in 
the Adriatic, when the sailors learnt by sounding 
that they were getting into shallow water. It was 
midnight. Fearing that they might be dashed on 
some rocky coast, they let down four anchors, and 
prayed for the morning. Under the pretence of 
letting down an anchor from the foreship, the sailors 
2d 



402 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

lowered a boat to escape. Paul pointed this out to 
the centurion, saying it was impossible for the sol- 
diers to be saved if these men deserted the ship. 
The soldiers made short work of this business. 
They cut the ropes of the boat, and let her fall into 
the sea. 

It was a dreary night ; but when the day began 
to break, Paul encouraged all on board to take 
some food. When it was light enough they saw a 
bay with a beach. Casting off the anchors, they 
left them in the sea, at the same time letting the 
rudders loose and hoisting the foresail to the wind, 
they made for land. Coming upon a place where 
two seas met, they ran the ship aground. The 
foreship stuck fast ; but the stern began to break up 
under the violence of the waves. The soldiers 
advised killing the prisoners. But the centurion, 
wishing to save Paul, stayed them, and commanded 
those who could swim to throw themselves over- 
board first ; the rest were to go as they could — 
some on planks, and some on broken pieces of the 
ship. There were two hundred and seventy-six 
souls on board ; but they all got safely to shore. 

They found they were on the island of Malta. 
They must have been miserably cold and wet, and 
quite worn out ; but the natives were very kind 
and lit a fire for them. 

While Paul was throwing some wood he had 
gathered on the fire a snake that was among the 
sticks, roused by the heat, sprang out and fastened 



THE SHIPWRECK 408 

on his hand. The natives first thought he must 
be a murderer punished in this way, although he 
had escaped the sea. But when he shook the 
beast off into the fire and took no harm, they 
thought he must be a god. 

After three months they set sail in a ship from 
Alexandria called " The Two Brothers," that had 
wintered in the island. They touched Syracuse 
and Rhegium, and landed at Puteoli. From there 
they went on by land. Paul was met by some of 
the Christians from Rome at a place called " The 
Market of Appius," and by some more at "The 
Three Taverns." The sight of them cheered him, 
and he thanked God and took courage. At Rome 
he was allowed to remain for two years in his own 
hired house. 

It is not easy to say what is exactly the end of 
the Bible story, because it is written in several 
books of different dates. While he was at Rome, 
Paul wrote letters to the churches at Philippi and 
Colosse, and the neighbourhood of Ephesus. He 
wrote, too, a beautiful letter to his friend Philemon, 
asking him to receive back a runaway slave, named 
Onesimus. The slave had stolen some of his 
master's property ; but Paul had met him, and he 
was now a changed man. It seems that when Paul 
was tried before the Emperor Nero he was found 
to be innocent, and set free. Then he travelled 
again, and wrote letters to his helpers, Timothy 



404 THE STORY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

and Titus. But he was at Rome a second time 
when Nero began to persecute the Christians. 
Then most likely Paul was beheaded; Peter, too, 
seems to have been killed at Rome at the same 
time. A few years later, James, the head of the 
Church at Jerusalem, was flung down from a high 
part of the Temple, and clubbed or stoned to death. 
These three were all martyrs ; so were many more 
of the early Christians, though John lived on to 
old age. As one by one the first disciples of Jesus 
Christ passed away, others took their places, and 
the numbers grew; and from this beginning, the 
Christian life has gone on right down to our own 
day. And now we have the story of Jesus and 
His Apostles, that we may learn to follow in His 
footsteps, and be guided and helped by their 
teaching. 



New Testament Handbooks 

Edited by SHAILER MATHEWS 

Professor of New Testament History and Interpreta 
lion, University of Chicago 



The History of the Textual Criticism of the New 
Testament 

Marvin R. Vincent, Professor of New Testament 
Exegesis, Union Theological Seminary. Now ready. 

Professor Vincent's contributions to the study of the New Tes- 
tament rank him among the first American exegetes. His most 
recent publication is " A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on 
the Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon " {International 
Critical Commentary), which was preceded by a " Student's New 
Testament Handbook," " Word Studies in the New Testament," 
and others. 

The History of New Testament Times in Pales- 
tine 

Shailer Mathews, Professor of New Testament 
History and Interpretation, University of Chicago. 

Now ready. 

The History of the Higher Criticism of the New 
Testament 

Henry S. Nash, Professor of New Testament Inter- 
pretation, Cambridge Divinity School. 
Of Professor Nash's " Genesis of the Social Conscience," The 
Outlook said: "The results of Professor Nash's ripe thought are 
presented in a luminous, compact, and often epigrammatic style. 
The treatment is at once masterful and helpful, and the book ought 
to be a quickening influence of the highest kind; it surely will 
establish the fame of its author as a profound thinker, one from 
whom we have a right to expect future inspiration of a kindred 
sort." 

Introduction to the Books of the New Testament 

B. Wisner Bacon, Professor of New Testament 
Interpretation, Yale University. 

Professor Bacon's works in the field of Old Testament criticism 
include " The Triple Tradition of Exodus," and " The Genesis ol 
Genesis," a study of the documentary sources of the books of 
Moses. In the field of New Testament study he has published a 
number of brilliant papers, the most recent of which is " The Auto- 
biography of Jesus," in the American Journal of Theology. 



The Life of Pam 

Rush Rhees, President of the University of Roches- 
ter 

Professor Rhees is well known from his series of " Inductive Les- 
sons" contributed to the Sunday School Times. His " Outline of 
the Life of Paul," privately printed, has had a flattering reception 
iroin New Testament scholars. 

The History of the Apostolic Age 

C. W. Votaw, Instructor in New Testament Litera- 
ture, University of Chicago. 

Of Dr. Votaw's " Inductive Study of the Founding of the Chris- 
tian Church," Modern Church., Edinburgh, says: "No fuller 
analysis of the later books of the New Testament could be desired, 
and no better programme could be offered for their study, than that 
afforded in the scheme of fifty lessons on the Founding of the 
Christian Church, by Clyde W. Votaw. It is well adapted alike 
for practical and more scholarly students of the Bible." 

The Teaching of Jesus 

George B. Stevens, Professor of Systematic Theol- 
ogy, Yale University. 

Professor Stevens' volumes upon " The Johannine Theology," 
" The Pauline Theology," as well as his recent volume on the 
Theology of the New Testament, have made him perhaps the most 
prominent American writer upon the biblical theology of the New 
Testament. His new volume will present an entirely fresh treat- 
ment of its important theme. 

The Biblical Theology of the New Testament 

E. P. Gould, formerly Professor of New Testament 
Interpretation, Protestant Episcopal Divinity School, 
Philadelphia. In preparation. 

The Teaching of Jesus and Modern Social Prob- 
lems 

Francis G. Peabody, Professor of Christian Ethics, 
Harvard University. 

The History of Christian Literature until Eusebius 

J. W. Platner, Professor of Early Church History, 
Harvard University. 

The Historical Geography of the New Testament 

J. R. S. Sterrett, Professor of Greek, Amhersl 
College. 



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